Words From The Den

As happens so often, I go to write some replies to the people who have left such kind comments here and I am unable to even begin.
"Why is that?" I ask myself.
"Well", replies a more Knowing Self, "that would be because you feel overwhelmed by the things that have been said and the fact that you don't deserve anyone to hear you. Thus replying seems to acknowledge that you are worth commenting ON".
"Ahhh" says my Wondering Self. And then a small "oh".

It's not just replying either.
It's writing full stop.
In my last post, I optimistically resolved to write more in order to stop throwing mountains of cash into the dissociative void.
As you can see, THAT went well.

On the subject of therapy (and given the subheading on this blog, I guess it should be) it has been... a little bit like curling up inside a den of very hungry lions who haven't yet sniffed me out.
I realise that I am here, admitting something that feels so risky that I WINCE as I type. Is it possible that the couch, in that little cottage in the woods, has become an object of safety?
It has been a year since I began therapy, so I guess it's about time that I started to feel like I can trust that place, at least a tiny bit.
Committing that thought to 'paper' (albeit virtual paper) feels terrifying. Perhaps because I am afraid that I can't take it back when suddenly, it all becomes so unsafe again. And it does... Sometimes the lions look at me with glazed eyes which could realise me at any given moment.
It's a risk and I stay curled, very small and for the time being at least, safe.

************ Having just written this, I read back and find that what I HAVEN'T written about is what I would really LIKE to find words the for and yet, as usual, I have tiptoed around lions.

If I live long enough, one day I'll fight them **************

Thoughts About Walls

Thanks in part to two readers here, Mark and Wanda (seriously... thank you), and also inspired by therapydoc's post about 'The Disappearing Act' , I have been thinking about the concept of walls.
Far stronger than physical walls, the walls I have been pondering are emotional walls. You know the kind I mean.

My guess is that there are very few people who haven't built a wall around something inside them. I guess with some confidence because walls are constructed as a response to pain or threat and they essentially serve the same purpose; to defend and to protect.
And who hasn't been hurt or felt as though they may be in danger?

Walls defend
Each brick has been puposefully and carefully laid, the foundations are often nearly as old as we are. They may not always be easily accessible or, for that matter, identifiable, but they always feel safe..
Maybe we have a 'don't get too close' brick in our wall? Perhaps a 'I don't care anyway' brick. Bricks that were originally shaped by rejection and are now cemented by the intense fear of it. Whole walls are built using this type of material.

There are painful bricks, bricks that will cut if they are touched. 'I don't need' bricks, watchful bricks, ready to advance like an attacking army if they sense danger.
Then there are other bricks. Bricks which are old and heavy, dark stones that can't be named because they can't be seen or touched. Dead bricks. Most useful for building walls of despair and depression.


I can't name all the bricks in my wall and I doubt that I am alone in finding that too daunting a task.

I feel like at this point in therapy, I am beginning to get a sense of the wall.
I am just starting to take in the scale and fortitude of what I have constructed.

I'd be interested in any thoughts about bricks so feel free to share.

To Trust or Not To Trust... THAT is the issue

You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink”
Terry Pratchett

I'm struggling to write about a lot of my therapy sessions, which is ludicrous given that I started this blog so I would have a place to air some of the things I was finding confusing or difficult.
I guess the thing I am finding most difficult at the moment is my fear of giving myself an inch... Of allowing myself the luxury of being heard an understood.
I'm caught between denial and the desire to deny myself. It's a hard place to be stuck and there's not a lot of space to manouevre.

OK. So. Who doesn't have an issue with trust? I mean, it's a hard thing to trust someone. Especially a therapist.
And that's the problem.

I don't trust her. I don't think I even WANT to trust her.

I explained to her that I was utterly ashamed at the me who she saw. It's not the 'me' that everyone else sees. It's a miserable and introspective, selfish and hopeless me.

I was DREADING going to therapy on Friday because it feels like such a RISK to be seen like this.
I explained it to her saying that I saw it as me having two options.
I either go and present myself to her as honestly as I am trying to... and in doing so, I am laid wide open to the horrible fear that she will be disgusted with me for my negativity, disgusted by my weakness, just disgusted by ME. OR I go and chat about lighthearted things and give her my 'outside' part, pragmatic, logical, competent, cynical and humourous. However, in doing this, I leave her room in a state of inner agony because I have sat close enough to relief to touch it but in keeping with denying myself anything good, I have chosen to walk away with desperation.

She said that put her in a double bind.
I said that put ME in a double bind.

I have bound both of us.

She said that she knew she couldn't soothe me at the moment.
Then she tried anyway and started saying that therapy has been around for so long because it works and that we could make the suffering go and ... and then she said other stuff and my mind went far away and I saw those bloody grey patches if I looked up. (I need to explain the mind thing, but that is another post).
I gripped the cushion and concentrated on the bones in knuckles,imagining them going through her glass window. ( I realise I sound a little crazy here but...)
In my whole body all I could hear was me screaming, "You're going to hurt me. You are going to hurt me".

I can't get past this. She is going to hurt me. She is going to get sick and tired of me. She is going to get horribly impatient and tell me to get over it. To get a grip. Tell me that I have to grow up. Tell me that I am being pathetic.
I want to leave her before she does that.

If I let her kindness touch me then I am just weakening my defences, and if I allow that for a second, BANG! She'll sock it to me and it will finish me off.

I am so stupidly afraid of her.

I explained some of this and she talked about transference.
I am uncertain and my mind is unclear.

I can't trust her not to destroy me. How can this ever work? (Answers on a postcard to...)