All The Feels

I’ve got all the feels tonight.

Last night when the kids arrived they had to follow the trail of chocolate money which lead them to advent calendars and their elf who was hiding in the fireplace with a letter for them. The letter spoke about things he had heard they’ve done over the year and spoke to each of them individually about their achievements etc. They all loved the note and were visibly very excited.

I sent last night’s blog to my T. I haven’t done that for quite a while. I sent it to her quite late, about 10.45pm and said that I just felt it would be comforting to send it to her even if she couldn’t read or reply. Much to my delight she replied very quickly saying she had read it all and then said:

Your blog is here with me and I have read it all.

Well done in doing so well this week in your new job, despite all the emotionally difficult stuff you are also having to deal with.

You are held in my mind even when you aren’t here and you were missed yesterday.

I am thinking of you this weekend and hope you have a good one.

Warmest wishes

I mean, how nice is that? I nearly cried when I read it and I’ve since read it about ten times. It makes my heart all warm and fuzzy.

Today we put our tree up and decorated the house with Xmas decorations. The kids loved it. Later me and my youngest stepson walked into town, we walked around some shops, got a few Xmas presents and had a Costa together. It was lovely. We chatted, laughed and took selfies, it felt so nice and easy going. There’s really something about walking with him, holding hands and chatting. It’s great.

Whilst we were in Costa, I did the standard adult joke of leaving the cream from my drink all over my face and acting like I didn’t know. His smile and laugh made me feel warm.

Later this afternoon we walked to the postbox to post his letter to Santa 🎅🏼 this was also so sweet. On the way home he asked I would sit in the back with him so I agreed. We had a little blanket across our laps and were singing along to the radio when a little band reached out. I held his hand all the way back to his mum’s house. So cute.

Despite everything else, those kids, my fiancé and T truly make me feel so much warmth and love and joy and hope. I am so grateful for those people being in my life.

On a less happy and warm fuzzy note, I found out earlier today that my Nan had a knee replacement op this week. I text my Nan to ask how she was feeling and she replied to say she was in a lot of pain but – wait for it… “you have had pain in your little life”… and then said how she was being looked after by my mother who is “the best nurse in the whole world” (she’s not a nurse she’s a clerk). Anyway, my Nan clearly doesn’t have a clue that we have fallen out and are not speaking. That’s my Nan and my Aunty then. Sounds like T’s theory was spot on!

Anyway, that’s it really. I just wanted to write that all out.

Why am I snapping at him?

Wednesday night/yesterday I was beginning to feel a bit irritable or stressed or something. Wednesday late afternoon, about 4pm, my fiancé sent me a message at work to say that his parents had invited us over for dinner that evening to see his sister and her 3 children. I feel mean but it was so not what I wanted to do that night. I wasn’t mentally prepared for it and so I asked him if he would mind going on his own. In the 3.5 years we’ve been together I have NEVER done that before. I felt instantly very guilty. Anyway, I finally got home about 7.30pm, got into my onesie, read my book for a while and then put one of my favourite programmes on. I felt so pleased that I had made this decision for myself because I just didn’t have the energy to put on my happy face a moment longer. It’s hard enough at work all day.

Unfortunately that feeling didn’t last long as the doorbell went and there stood my fiancé, his dad and his sister. They had run him home and then decided to come in and have a cup of tea with me.  I wasn’t expecting them and so I guess it felt like a bit of an invasion.  They had “ruined” my relaxation and my time alone and I wasn’t mentally prepared for visitors (or dressed for them!). Whilst they were there, his sister told me that WE were all going for a meal the following evening (last night – Thursday evening). I feel like a bad person for admitting this but my heart sank.  I was in (am still in) need of some time alone, some time to feel how I really feel, some space.  This now meant that Wednesday night was ruined, Thursday night was now ruined AND on top of that, we have my fiancé’s children every Friday and Saturday so I knew that meant that until Sunday, I had to have my game face on.  I guess also, seeing his perfect family is very hard for me when I am feeling triggered from the lack of having had one myself. I know that sounds selfish.

What struck me at this point was that I used to have “my game face on” every day of my life! Now that therapy has got me in touch with my feelings, I am finding it increasingly difficult to not have the time and space I need to process and feel my feelings. That was quite a huge realisation.  How the hell did I get through life like that? Repression I guess.

Back to the story.. I woke up yesterday feeling just annoyed. I felt resentful that is the best word I have for it. I noticed that this was leaking out of me by me being snappy and miserable towards my fiancé and then instantly feeling guilty.  I also noticed that when I wasn’t with him, I craved him, I thought about how much I loved him, I smiled at lovely memories etc but when I was actually with him.. he irritated me. I snapped at him. I felt angry.  WHY??????

I realised that I was in real danger of projecting my bad feelings onto him and that wasn’t fair and so I composed a very long text to him which basically told him that I was struggling with some feelings post therapy this week and craving some time to not have to paint on a smile. I told him that with the plans with his family two nights in a row this week (at the last-minute) and then having his kids at the weekend, I could feel some resentment. I told him that I wasn’t blaming him at all and that he had done nothing wrong at all. I just wanted him to know how I was feeling so that he didn’t take it personally. I also told him that I wanted his love and wanted to have a proper chat about it all, that I wanted a cuddle but that when I was with him, I seemed to be irritable and said it was probably my whole push/pull thing.  NEEDING to get close and yet being too scared too.

I told T about this in yesterday’s session and she said that it was good I was more able to own what was mine and not take it out on him. I guess she is right.  She asked what I thought the guilt was about when I decided not to go to his parents on Wednesday and I said well, I guess I felt that I should be putting myself out more for him.  T said she wondered whether I was worried whether he was okay with that, whether he would “store it up” and use it against me another time or something?  I said that I believed he was okay with it but that I guess perhaps I worried he would do the same back to me one time and with my mum, that would  be pretty hard going.  T asked whether I told him that and I said I hadn’t.  She said perhaps you could?

So we had the meal with all of his family last night. The meal went well, it was fine and my fiancé’s kids came along too which is not something that would usually be allowed as it isn’t our time to have them.  I then “put myself out” by driving from where we live to the restaurant which took me an hour and was nerve-wracking for me as it was a long drive on a-roads in the dark and in the rain. I only passed my test a year ago and so driving places I do not know is still scary to me.  I did it so that we could drop his children home afterwards which was one of the terms that they could come.  I feel better now that I have evened the scales a bit more in my mind.

But then something weird happened again.  My fiancé drove my car home and on the way home I felt my happy me mask start to come off. My fiancé was being silly and beeping my horn randomly and it just irritated me.  Then he started doing other stupid things (that were harmless and fun) and I just got more and more annoyed.  By the time we got home and it was just us again, I felt pretty down but yet again, it is only him that seems to be on the receiving end of this irritable-ness.  This makes me feel bad. Really bad.  The moment he stops playing and is probably hurt or being quiet, I feel bad. When he leaves the house/the room – I feel awful and cry.

WHY?

So here we are. It is now midday on Friday. The kids are back tonight and we have a busy weekend with them. I feel less resentful today but I am looking forward to my gym class in the morning to work off a bit of tension. Interestingly I have a very upset stomach and a headache today which could be due to eating too much at the meal last night, or related to my (unconscious?) emotions. I am not sure.  We are seeing  my mum tomorrow night and I think there may be some unconscious nerves about that too. Am I angry and trying not to be? What am I angry about?

Feelings are so messy!

 

(Ps, T leant me a new book yesterday. When she was looking on her bookshelf for it however I noticed that the book she had leant me a while ago which I had covered with sticky tabs had gone…. where has it gone? Has she leant it to someone else? Has she taken off the sticky-tabs? Why does this bother me?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coping Strategies/Behaviours

Its 3.54pm as I start to type this.  I am sat on my cuddle chair with the back door open for some fresh air to come in whilst wearig a comfy pair of jogging bottoms, a hoodie and have my blanket over my legs.

I took another day off of work today although I am actually feeling a million times better than yesterday.  I just craved one more day at home alone, but not because I am crying or anything.  Today I have been to the gym, blasted my music through my headphones and spent about 40 minutes on the treadmill walking and running and then a bit on the exercise bike.  After the gym, I went to the supermarket and stocked up on loads of healthy foods, fruit, salad, veg etc.  I came home, made and ate a lovely salad and I am now cooking a roast chicken for me and my fiance to eat tonight after my therapy session.

I feel strangely good today.. happy.. positive.  I don’t mean to sound like Mrs Negative or anything, but I am considering whether this is some strange sort of fake happiness or the calm before the storm.  It could also, of course, be genuine because writing that letter yesterday to T helped me immensely.  I found so much clarity writing that letter, it helped me to figure out my main concerns, my main fears and where they came from – what the transference was and what is actually “now”.  Since doing that, the whole episode feels minimised into almost nothing…

I am open to the thought that this could be some clever trick my psyche is playing on me because I admit that it feels much easier to be angry with T at a distance and of course in a few hours I will be sat in front of her and the thought makes me squirm!!!

I guess it’s better than spending the day feeling unwell which has happened lots in the past if I am dreading a session, sometimes I get bad heartburn, a headache or an upset stomach. I guess there is still time.

I am really intrigued to see how tonight goes.  I feel quite open to all ideas and suggestions and I am not going in angry or closed so I think that is good… but I am dreading reading my letter to T and any of the other blogs that I have sent her. How cringe is that? It isn’t so much the actual complaints such as “her admitting her anger” or whatever, that is genuinely a concern and one I am happy to tell her, its more the bits where I was angry and writing things like “well you sound like my fucking mother!!” cringe, cringe, cringe…………………

I am predicting that if T is nice and soft and makes me feel at ease then I may end up very easily accepting any apology or suggestion that she makes.. and then potentially coming away afterwards or the next day and thinking “actually, no, I don’t like that”… I don’t know why the delay.. perhaps again it comes back to being more comfortable feeling my anger at a distance where she can’t get to me/see me or something.  Either way, I feel this is my first real rupture and I am sure whatever happens will lead to some valuable therapy.. who knows how useful it may end up being. I am still in shock that I found some random courage to confront her about my worries and doubts, that is very unlike me. Perhaps a new, more courageous and outspoken me is being born! Here’s hoping!

Changing the subject slightly, the last time I felt as down as I did yesterday was the beginning of June. That was the week I ended up being signed off work.  In that week, after the two days of non-stop crying and sleeping, I went to the gym nearly every day, shopped for healthy food, ate nothing but salad and rabbit food (not really) and made a real effort to lose weight………  so that is interesting that I’ve done that again today/yesterday after feeling so low…. coincidence or not? I am not sure.

Me and another blogger were talking a while ago about this very subject – we have both noticed our patterns with food when we feel insecure or upset.  We both reported episodes of either restricting food OR comfort eating, depending on the feeling. She rightly pointed out that it seems to be about feeling powerless and out of control. I guess this is the same for people who suffer from eating disorders – perhaps it is for the same reasons?  When I was a kid, I had a little bin in my room and I used to hide my dinners in it rather than getting told off for not eating enough – that would certainly explain that, although it wouldn’t have been a conscious decision at that age.

It made me think of other things I do/behaviours I have when I am experiencing certain feelings. So far I can think of the following: Eat less/eat too much, sleep too much, stay home from work with the curtains closed and a blanket on me all day – not showering until an hour before my fiance is due home, spend money/shop excessively, clean and tidy the house excessively and get agitated by any mess that is made (I note I had severe OCD as a child) and lastly, crave alcohol – go out and drink wine.  What do you do?

The other thing we spoke about was that I will fall back into severe body hating.  I will find myself repulsive and get horrible visions of things I want to do to my body.  I will feel ugly and fat and just generally disgusting – she suggested that perhaps when I do that, I am turning my anger inwards – I think that is highly likely. I really need to keep an eye on this as it is clearly very destructive.

Well, it is now 4.15pm….. in just over 3 hour I will be there with T.. think of me please and send me good luck vibes! AGGGHHHH……

The Floodgates Have Opened (Trigger Warning) ⚠️

Last night when the kids went home and I wrote my blog, I felt a familiar feeling of being low, being down or sad or something. I put a lot of it down to this current situation with T, but thought it could also be standard Sunday blues and perhaps some secret resentment of having had the kids all weekend and having no time to myself or my fiancé mixed with some (immature) irritations at things mainly triggered between my fiancé and my Stepdaughter. Also that memory is playing on my mind. 

I went to bed feeling down and thought to myself, why are you so sad? I told myself to pull myself together and that I don’t have much longer at this company so I just had to suck it up. 

I dreamt a lot last night. The dream seems to be all over the place, I will note it below in case writing it helps me make sense of a feeling or message somehow. 

Anyway, I got dressed this morning and felt huge. Really fat. I grabbed onto the fat on my hips and stomach and felt hideous. I’ve really let myself go. I stepped on the scales and thought again, wow, you fat cow. 

My hair looks shit. It’s all over the place and the top looks greasy despite being washed yesterday. Why am I so ugly and fat? 

I walked to work and regretted the trousers I am wearing. They make me look even fatter. What was I thinking? I can’t pull these off. 

I got to work, I felt headachy, sweaty and miserable. I changed my shoes and took my bag to the toilets to do my hair again. I went into a cubicle, sat down on the toilet and BOOM! I burst into hysterical tears. I cried so hard, so loudly and so many tears. I felt awful. I also didn’t give two shits that colleagues may hear me. I just kept crying and crying… 

I realised this wasn’t going to pass and I grabbed my phone and text my boss. I told him I wasn’t in a state to work and that I needed to take the day as sick or work from home. I knew I couldn’t really work from home and regretted suggesting that. luckily he replied and told me to take it as sick. 

I’m now on my way back home. I’m trying to picture what I want or need to do when I get in. The first image that comes up is stripping my clothes off and then slicing the fat off my body. I won’t actually do that, don’t worry, but that’s the image. 

I wonder if I need sleep? Do I need exercise? Nothing is hitting the spot. I have slept loads this weekend and when I sleep, I dream and I don’t want to dream and wake up worse. 

I’ve thought about contacting T to say I need to see her and sort this mess out today , perhaps it’s this making me so upset? But what is stopping me is that given how I am feeling, the very last thing I want to do is show her my weakness. I can’t show her I am weak and impressionable and easily shut up. I can’t afford to be vulnerable with her at the moment. She is too dangerous. 

My eyes are filling up as I type this on my phone on the train home. 

I think to myself, what is wrong with you?? Seriously?! 

The dream:

Walking around the area my Nan used to live in looking for the school I worked in. Couldn’t find it or remember the name of it. 

Got picked up along the main road Nan lived on but left my saucepans on. Someone took them in and I wanted to get them but was too embarrassed to admit they were mine and I had left them on. 

Two dead babies. I held one. I stood up and the dead baby was heavy and my shoe heel sunk into the grass – I asked someone to hold the baby until I had come back but said I wasn’t avoiding the dead babies which is what they were implying. 

Another teacher had loads and loads of lovely clothes. I didn’t have any. I found her room and all her clothes were hanging up. She had such lovely stuff. I looked at the labels and thought I would try and shop there but doubted anything would look as nice on me. 

My boss said I could go home early – it was about 4pm but I hadn’t done someone else’s typing. I asked if he needed me to stay and do it, he said it needed to be done by 10am tomorrow. I thought I would send it to his PA, but was nervous she wouldn’t pick it up in time and wasn’t sure whether I should stay or not. 

Days like this are HARD. Hard isn’t a strong enough word. Days like this make me feel like I have a real fault. Nobody else seems to get this way at work, none of my friends do either. Why am I so miserable? I feel so awful for my fiancé, he’s always so happy and content. He’s so steady. He’s just had what he classes as “a great weekend” and has gone to work feeling rested – then there’s me?! How does that happen? How did someone like him get stuck with someone like me? 

What goes up….

I feel really down today. I’m sad, really sad. I have fought the temptation of not going to work the whole journey so far because I can feel in my entire body, in my bones, a really intense need to cry. To sob. 

I’m slightly surprised because I felt very strong on Friday, I even emailed my T to tell her that I felt a huge shift in my recovery. I meant every word. Now I feel like some sort of crazy person for being such a yoyo of emotion. Up one day and down the next, such extremes. 

It feels as though it’s been a while since I felt this sadness. It’s heavy. It’s in my body and in my brain. I feel like I’m so weak and so tired yet physically I’m standing and trying to keep going. It’s so tough. 

The reason for the sadness is this. Last night my fiancé told me that the reason he was quiet/down all day was due to how difficult he found Saturday evening (gathering at my aunt’s house with my mother). He said it’s just all so toxic and dysfunctional and that he always feels so on edge. He also said he finds it so twisted that everyone is so clearly slagging each other off and so and so hates x and x hates y…. he said that me and my mother were clearly trying to wind each other up and he found it very tough as he was constantly waiting for it to all kick off. He also added that it’s always a high-pressured environment to drink as much as you can and he doesn’t like that. 

Now, today I can honestly say that everything he said is right. It’s all true but what happened when he said this to me last night was that I felt attacked and I became very defensive and emotional. 

I felt like he was saying my whole family were fucked up. That everyone is toxic and that the environment is always drunk-fuelled and dysfunctional. I felt like that said something about me. That was a dig about ME. The thing is, all of those statements are sadly true. But why did I feel it was a reflection of me? I don’t know. 

His statement about how me and my mother were clearly winding one another up angered me because I felt he wasn’t “On my side”. I felt as though he was saying I was a bad as her. I also felt defensive because although yes I admit I probably did become a little passive aggressive, it was only in retaliation and deep down, inside me, I was so hurt and disappointed that situation was happening. Again. 

I see today that I was beginning to be sucked back in to her. I rather foolishly started to think things had maybe begun to change! I had seen her a few times recently, more than I have for a very long time and she had behaved well! I thought that it was my new boundaries and her finally not being able to push me around that was making our time together much more tolerable….. I was wrong. 

I feel so stupid. 

On Saturday night she did various things that upset or angered me and as I wrote yesterday, I had tears as I went to sleep and I wasn’t sure what the tears were for. I do now. 

I hate to admit that there is still a part of me that needs her mother. I hate to admit that she has left me feeling so grieved again. I hate myself for falling into the trap again and I hate her for not being who I want her to be. 

More objectively I can also see that it’s understandable for me to occasionally slip back into thought processes and that of course the child in me still yearns for her mother. I can also see that she is who she is and that I shouldn’t hate her for that because it’s only using up my energy. I need to learn to accept her for who she is and I thought I had. But I haven’t. 

Friday I felt as though I was at the top of a mountain and today I feel like I’ve fallen and I’m completely covered in rocks and I’m struggling to get out. 

I did become passive aggressive with her and I did do/say things to wind her up – I should have. The reason I did that was because she had (yet again) hurt me so deeply and disappointed me so much. She triggered my hurt and angry inner child and my inner child reacted from that place rather than from an adult place. 

I told my fiancé that he sounded righteous and obnoxious and that he made it sound like my entire circle were all distorted and fucked up and even said to him that I can’t spend my entire life only being around him, his parents and his kids! I realise today that I said that because I’m so jealous. I want so badly to have some “normal” family, some normal gatherings and I won’t ever have that. 

It isn’t righteous when it’s true is it. 

And today all of this and more things that I don’t have the words for are pulling me down and making me feel so much sadness and so much anger and so much disappointment. 

Where does it go?

As I was sat in the hairdressers this morning I reflected back on the events that unfolded since my session Thursday. I thought about the initial upset, then the anger, the missatunement, the confusion, more anger and then yesterday’s decision to tell T how I was feeling. 

LUCKILY for me, T responded quickly and said she heard I was angry with her (I bet she nearly fell off her chair!) and she asked me if I was able to come for another session that same day – only two hours later actually! 

Unfortunately I couldn’t go, as much as I would have loved to, because I was at work but I really love that she offered. 

I told her I couldn’t, but would have really loved to and she replied to say that as that wasn’t going to work she was “here” and thinking of me, that she understood the anger and confusion and acknowledged that her missatunement (is that an agreement?) had got me in touch with my anger and pain. 

She suggested that I kept writing and told me she would not retaliate and told me to “hang in there“. 

I felt instantly better. Like within moments and that hasn’t changed since. In fact today I feel happy and have been singing along to my tunes in the car. 

I dreamt of “her” last night. I say “her” like that because it was meant to be her but I’m not sure her face was right – I don’t actually recall a face but I knew it was T if that makes sense. [side question: does anyone struggle to call up an image of their T? I can’t picture her when I’m not in fromt of her at all. I would struggle to draw a picture of her or describe her to someone]. 

Anyway, the dream was that I was at her family home with her dream husband and daughter. Me and her daughter were playing together and I stayed over and had dinner the next day. We went outside to her garden which was absolutely beautiful and huge. It even had pink blossom trees and a stream! We sat and played games and it was heavenly. 

I remember in the dream that they had some suitcases out in a room on the floor and had started to pack for a skiing trip. I think I was sad about that but trying to push that out of my mind. 

My sister was with me too, she was very young in the dream and lost a tooth which I looked after for her. 

When we were leaving T gave me a melon, some yogurts and an open can of baked beans (how odd!!) I loved that she gave me those things and didn’t want to leave. I left and drove me and my little sister home. 

I woke up and shortly after I fell back to sleep, this time I dreamt of what I can only describe as a giant heart shape made of grass and hedges and I was pushing the centre of the heart desperately trying to get inside. 

To break through the heart. Symbolic much? 

Dreams aside, I’m just wondering, why I feel so much better just because T knows? I wonder psychologically speaking why that helps so much? How has it completely removed the anger? Why do I feel so adult and content today when I felt so desperate then? 

Not that I’m complaining of course, I just wonder why it’s made such a huge difference. 

Anger, Sadness, Confusion and Misattunement

I can’t cuddle Frank right now. Actually I can’t even look at him so I threw him off the side of the bed last night. My boyfriend said, “ooh is someone angry with T?” Yes. Yes I am. He asked why but I felt far too vulnerable to tell him. Poor innocent little Frank though.

I am feeling angry but I’m also feeling hurt and misunderstood and rejected although I’m not actually sure why I feel rejected! On top of that I feel some guilt because (and as a reader pointed out earlier) I have a suspicion in the back of my mind that my anger may be disproportionate and misdirected.

Here’s what happened from my perspective:

I left T yesterday and felt instantly uneasy. I felt a mixture of sadness and anger. I later managed to write and realised the feelings (which were quite young) were that I felt I hadn’t “had enough” of T yet before I had to leave her again and be without her for another 5 days.  I cried quite a lot and was really in touch with the sad feelings.

I then decided to reach out and email T to tell her this was how I was feeling. I felt vulnerable doing this because there was a risk that she may think I was being over the top and extreme – it is, after all, only a few days. But I did it anyway and I really hoped she was going to reply and say she understood that it felt it wasn’t enough, that I didn’t want to leave, that I would miss her and that I would soon be back…or in my fantasy that she would tell me to come back on Saturday or something and that she missed me too (obvs I know that wouldn’t happen but a girl can dream!)

BUT

But what happened was that she replied nicely, very kindly – but in my eyes, to me, about the wrong thing. It felt she got it wrong and the anger that brought up in me was pretty scary. I was so angry that she hadn’t “got it”.

It wasn’t about the child bit not having been tended to in session (as she said) it wasn’t that! It was just that I didn’t want to leave her again. I didn’t want to have to go away from her. I suspect there is some transference going on here – perhaps I am feeling something from my past or whatever, perhaps its an emotional flashback.  It feels to me that it is about the break and about missing her and being left alone again already or something. Perhaps I am scared she will be gone too long – I don’t know but what I do know is that it isn’t that the child bit didn’t feel it got what it needed – it wasn’t that. It’s just that I will miss her.

I got so angry because I felt so unseen and T has never made me feel like that before. I felt so much anger that she missed the point – that she had read my writing and was being so misattuned to me – that was so painful. She’s meant to be perfect – she’s meant to be a mind-reader AND she’s meant to just get it and make it feel better but she didn’t and that felt horrific. She made it worse and now I hated her for that. I felt so disappointed.

I shouted “no!!! no!!!!” out loud through my sobs to myself – no, please don’t get it wrong, please don’t make me feel worse, please don’t be imperfect, don’t let me be angry with you. Because she is the only person that I’m NEVER angry with you know? She is the safe person, the safe place. She is the good mother and I don’t want to turn her bad.

 

T has said to me in the past that sometimes in therapy our psyche can distort things to get us to where we need to be. So with that in mind, perhaps I have “made” some anger at T as I need an excuse to direct my anger somewhere? But obviously if that is the case it is unconscious and so it doesn’t FEEL like that.

It could be misdirected and actually be about anger I have towards my mother (I will call her bitchface from now on I think).. but that hasn’t been my style before, so why now?

OR it could be that being angry with T is easier than having to feel that horrible, painful longing for her that I was feeling before she “got it wrong”. I don’t miss her now I’m angry although I am desperate for this to be resolved.

Who knows.

That now leaves me here and wondering what to do for the best. Half of me wants to contact her again, take another risk (although that feels very scary). I half want to tell her that I’ve felt angry since she replied yesterday because it feels she didn’t “get it”. To tell her that it triggered a strong reaction in me of anger and that I’ve felt uncomfortable about it since. To tell her that my response was typed very bluntly (but I wasn’t sure she had picked up on that or not) and as she then hadn’t replied it felt even worse (hello, why aren’t you a mind-reader??).  Oh and that kind regards, best wishes and all other sign-offs were pissing me off too because they felt cold and clinical and that her name and a kiss would feel much warmer (LOL).

Or do I just sit with it and wait until I see her next Tuesday night?

That is potentially safer in that there can be no more misattunement – no more understandings and therefore no more potential anger or sadness to have to deal with BUT the likelihood is that I will push it all down and away and come Tuesday I will feel as though I am “over it” although I probably won’t be and I won’t tell her because I won’t feel it necessary and then and even if I did, the feelings would be removed and it would all feel rather unimportant and small. That doesn’t feel particularly healthy or productive.

What is best, not risking more misattunement and not getting anything resolved or risking more misattunement and more anger but getting some reassurance?

I hate it when these things crop up at the end of the week and then you have to go into your Friday and weekend feeling confused and hurt and upset and rejected. I don’t want to have to carry that all weekend and i don’t seem to be much good right now at “holding” it (if I ever have been).

T has said to me in the past that when my anger comes I may find her emails set me off and that we can’t deal with the anger via email because it can make it worse – she said it almost becomes a case of damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t in regards to responding to a client in that situation and that she may have to reply to say we would speak about it in session – to “bring the anger into the room” – and can you imagine if she did that? IF best wishes set me off, what would that do?

Is there a chance that T IS right? am I misunderstanding my own feelings? Because if I am, then clearly I do not want to be telling her all of this and then look like a total tit! My gut is telling me that she isn’t right but I am now so confused by everything I am doubting myself.

Yeserday in session T said how there will be a part of me that is still hoping my mother will change and I said no there isn’t. She said there will be even if I am not consciously aware of it and I said again, no there isn’t. Not any more. I felt a bit of resistance in me. A little tiny bit of anger I guess – NO I DON’T!!! but I imagine that could be because she is right and I am wrong. Is this the same? I don’t think so, but???

WWWWWAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

 

Ps, bitchface text me about ten minutes after T’s response – can you believe that?

 

 

 

I Haven’t Sat On Her Lap For Long Enough Yet.

When I left my session this afternoon I walked to my car and felt like I had a heavy weight inside my chest. It was heavy and strong. I knew that meant  that I was upset, that I needed to cry.   I got in the car, started the engine and put my seatbelt on and then I just sat there for a moment to see what was going on.

My eyes filled up with tears but it didn’t feel like I could get in touch with these feelings sat outside T’s house and so I drove off.  A few more tears rolled down my face a few minutes later. I tried to figure out what the tears were about  and a fleeting ‘voice’ in my head said it was because I was driving away from T’s. I quickly rejected that thought, nah, it couldn’t be that.

I drove to the gym despite the fact I really couldn’t be bothered to go. I thought that perhaps I could run it out. Usually it helps to release some tension but it didn’t because I couldn’t catch a thought long enough to use it fuel me.

I left the gym and drove home. On the way home my road rage found its way out again, I found myself screaming “fucking go then!!!!! IDIOT!!” and could feel how wound up and tense I was.  I questioned myself – am I angry?

That didn’t feel right either (although the road rage clearly is an anger release). I WAS angry but I was also other things. Anger was too simple.

I got home and went and had a shower and then I sat on the bed and burst into tears. Ah thank God. That release was sooo needed. I remembered to be nice to myself and I tried to talk to my inner child (in my head) asking what was upsetting her , asking what she needed?

Some fleeting thoughts came and went and they seem to be a mixture of  a reaction of the material I spoke about in therapy and leaving therapy today.

Why am I upset about leaving my session though? I haven’t worked this through properly in my head yet but the thoughts unfiltered are something like this: She only just came back and now I have to leave her again. I want her to stay for longer. I wish I could have stayed for longer. I haven’t had enough yet, it doesn’t feel like I should have to go away again yet …… [insert floods of tears here – hang on….].

Okay.. that got me.

I shouldn’t have to go away again yet/already – SHE shouldn’t be gone away again/already….

I know logically of course that she is now back from her break. That we are back to normal sessions but something about leaving my session has set me off. I don’t know why.

If I try to liken the situation to a real-life past event I can think that my mother regularly went away on holiday and then when she came back I would see her for a day or two before being shipped back off to someone else as she went out clubbing etc. Is that what I am remembering/feeling? Perhaps somewhere inside it feels as though I’ve seen her a little bit (but not enough) and now I am going to be away from her for another 5 days. 5 days feeling like forever right now when in fact it isn’t a long time and factually speaking it’s 4 days as I see her on the evening of the 5th…

I just feel I haven’t had enough yet. I don’t feel like I’ve made the most of her – I haven’t absorbed her enough yet. Her face and voice feel a bit faded at the moment.  It isn’t quite strong enough yet. She doesn’t seem “here” enough yet.

I haven’t sat on her lap for long enought yet to be able to go off and play happily. I still want to sit there and I want to cuddle her and smell her perfume and take her in for a bit longer before I have to leave her again. (Metaphorically speaking.)

I’ve had tears running down my face the whole time I’ve been typing this – they haven’t eased off yet.

I feel I have not had enough yet. I shouldn’t be back on my own again yet. It isn’t fair. She is too far away already and again and it hurts right now. It really, really hurts like hell.

Reaching Out Or Self-Soothing?

Would reaching out to T actually help? 

I’m torn. Do I try and handle this by myself and prove to myself. and to T, that I am able to regulate myself and hold it in her absence? Will she be proud of me if I do? 

I want to give her a break – that’s what she needs. It’s why she’s taken time off. 

Yet at the same time I’m thinking that she’s always encouraged me to reach out when I need to and encouraged that I don’t go into self-sufficient mode as I always did as a child. 

I think she would rather help to regulate me than hear later that I struggled with it alone. Wouldn’t she? I don’t know. 

I don’t want to isolate myself through shame. I’m trying to fight that pattern. 

I’m okay. I’m surviving it. Like it’s painful and I’m sad and I was thrown into an emotional flashback for sure, BUT I’ve made sense of it now and I’m allowing the sad feelings to come. I’m allowing myself to cry and listen to the child part talking. I’m not falling apart. 

What could she say that would help? She would probably validate my feelings but I’ve already done that for myself (and so have some kind readers) so I don’t think I need that. 
Then there’s the issue that as I don’t know where she is, she may not read or reply to me for hours and hours and that could potentially throw me into abandonment stuff which I don’t need right now. 

She may even reply kindly but it may set off the feeling it’s “not enough” again and so perhaps I’m safer staying at a distance and handling it myself? 

Things have gone south: Emotional Flashback

Things have gone south. 

I went to the quiz night last night with my boyfriend and his parents. The evening was pleasant until… 

3 women walk towards our table and as I look up, it’s my mother and two of her friends. 

Oh My God. 

I felt a weird panic. Shock, fear, awkwardness. I couldn’t believe she was here. This was my local and she knew I drank here sometimes and that we did this quiz with my boyfriends’s parents…. what was she doing here? And on a Wednesday night? She had never been here before my birthday. Childish I’m like “this is my place. Not your’s”. 

Everyone said hello to one another but the awkwardness was really obvious. My mother put her fake posh look and voice on and said “we came for supper”… supper??? Sorry who are you? Before I knew it, I was saying “Supper? Since when do you use that word?”. Looking back I guess that was a bit aggressive but the words had flown out of my mouth before I had processed them. She was trying to put on an act of some sort of poshness because she thinks my boyfriend’s parents are posh. 

The difference between my boyfriend’s parents and her (and her friends) was so obvious. I really wasn’t enjoying this one bit. I wasn’t prepared for it.

There were a few moments of small talk and then she and her friends left. Nothing more was said. I felt so weird… so uncomfortable…. and I’m not sure if everyone did, or if it was just me, but suddenly it felt as though there was an elephant in the room. Things weren’t being said that were being thought – I wonder if I’m wrong? 

I panicked because I’m scared (or the little me) is that she will tell them I’ve been bad – that I AM bad. Because that’s what she did to me when I was young. She always made stories up to my grandparents and told them in front of me so that they disapproved. She would phone them or my aunty or my sister’s dad or get her latest fling to tell me off. I think that young fear is still there. 

I’m a different person with her to with them. Please don’t ruin this for me…. please don’t tell them I’m bad!!  She always won the crowd – the audience, whoever was watching. How ashamed I was. 

Anyway we got on with our evening and she wasn’t mentioned again. Me and my boyfriend came home and I went straight to bed as it was late and as my head hit the pillows and I grabbed Frank, I cried. 

I didn’t know then what I was crying for and I’m not entirely sure now but I woke up for work this morning and (sorry for tmi) had a very upset tummy. I called in sick and am now in bed with a thumping headache. 

I know not everyone believes in the mind and body link, but I do and so I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this happened, that I cried and that I’m feeling crap. But I can’t put my finger on what upset me so much. 

I’ve had my mind and body book out and looked up my symptoms to see if that helped, diarrhoea mainly pointing towards not being able to hold on to something anymore, being scared shitless or feeling as though you’ve been hit in the guts. The headache points to too much time in the head and repressed feelings. 

The thing is I’ve been aware that I’ve been really overeating. I feel constantly hungry at the moment and I’ve not been caring what I’m eating or how much. And I haven’t been to the gym like I usually do. This is a huge change from previous months where I’ve been eating a certain amount of calories and exercising a lot. I put this down to the break but now I’m not so sure. It’s no surprise my stomach is chucking it all out, there’s too much!! It’s also made me think back to a time when I used to starve myself and hide my food in my bedroom bin and then get told off… no I’m doing the opposite. 

My boyfriend had to go to work and I really wanted him to stay and cuddle me. Problem is he’s scared of getting ill and so won’t come near me when I’m sick. 

I’m really in touch with this needy feeling of needing to be looked after. As I write this tears are dripping down my face. 

I wish I could expand on that a bit, but I don’t think I can. I just have this craving to be looked after and made better. I wish someone was here to give me a cuddle, let me cry on them, maybe cook me soup at lunch and make me feel loved. I need love.

I’m crying because I need love. I want love and affection and to feel looked after. Instead I’m eating food and that’s making me ill as my stomach tries to tell me “no, that’s not helping!”. Apparently the hole can’t be filled with food.

Maybe I’m a bit regressed and I’m feeling like a child that needs her mummy.

I had a dream earlier this morning that I had made my hamster a new cage up as he had wrecked his. His tube had broken and he was seconds away from escaping and his fur was matted. I bathed him, held him and fixed his cage and tubes. I mothered him. 

That’s why I’m crying isn’t it? This sucks so bad. I feel heartbroken. 

And today and I would normally see T but she’s gone and that makes it hurt even more. 

I need a mummy and she’s gone. Both in the sense that the mummy I wanted never was mine and my therapy mummy is away. I’m feeling alone and in need of being looked after like a child. That mother hole constantly getting bigger. 

I’ve just cried a whole river. Snotty, noisey crying. Wow that was horrible. 

Damn it.