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neverendingwhyy · 5 years ago

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In this piece of writing I am going to try to recount my counselling session I had this morning, as I feel it was a pivotal moment in my therapy and journey to learning more about myself, my trauma and why I am the way I am. I am going to paraphrase in some areas but none of this will be exaggerated nor will anything be left out unless I feel it was completely irrelevant. So, here goes nothing…

I sat down in my usual spot in her therapy room, completely unexpecting of where today's session would lead. As per usual, I had not planned or thought about what I was going to talk about today, and just let the words flow spontaneously from my mouth. First I confessed my reluctance to go to work since I became pregnant, as well as having a severe back injury that my job makes so much worse.

This lead to me saying:

"I have another confession to make… I downloaded Tinder the other day."

My therapist - let's call her P for private - asked me to explain why I introduced this information as a confession.

"Well, over the past 10 years of my life, the absolute longest I have been able to stay consistently single is the better part of 2 months, yet throughout every relationship no matter how long, short, serious or casual it was, no matter how much I enjoyed or despised it, I longed to be alone. I had the desire to almost date myself in a way, like to learn who and what I really am when I am not half of someone else. Yet every time I finally get the opportunity to do so, I'm immediately, consciously or not, seeking a new connection; all the while preaching to myself and friends and family that I am not at all looking for a relationship. But no matter what, within weeks I am someone else's partner, sometimes reluctantly so due to my inability to turn people down, and sometimes willingly, telling myself this time things will be different. Despite this constant longing to be alone, this idea that I intrinsically despise affection, love, romance, being wanted, I always find myself behaving in a way that would portray anything but those desires or beliefs. I'll find myself back on a dating app in less than a week after becoming single, and my bio every time will state that "I don't know why I'm on here" even though subconsciously I probably knew very well what I was on there for (thought still unable to articulate it to this day, if there is a reason). A severe case of cognitive dissonance, and it annoys the shit out of me. About a week or two ago, I was watching a show and there was an intimate scene with cuddling and kissing. Now, most of my life, due to my personal experiences with... "sex", I have always hated those scenes in movies, always thinking the whole time "Oh just get on with the film already" but for the first time ever, I watched this scene and instead of being irritated by it, I found myself feeling jealous, realising I had a craving for the physical affection that was on the screen in front of me, someone to cuddle and kiss. So that night I downloaded Tinder, and Bumble."

P took this in and asked me:

"What is it about the part of you that wants the affection? Where do you think that part of you comes from? Does this part of you have a certain age?"

I replied, after thinking for a while:

"I guess it would be my seven-year-old self."

P: "Why do you think it is your 7-year-old self?"

Me: "I presume it's because that is the first time I experienced being somewhat sexualised, experiencing something that no 7-year-old should experience, and all I wanted after that experience was someone to hug me and tell me what had happened was not okay."

P: "Are there other behaviours in your life that you can attribute to this 7-year-old part of yourself? What are they?"

I paused:

Me: "I guess this is the part of me that would walk from home to town and back again completely alone, clubbing by myself and getting beyond wasted, and yet still being surprised and damaged when I was subsequently taken advantage of. This is the part of me that chooses to willingly walk home at 3am through the dark, secluded park rather than the open road with people to hear if something were to go wrong, naively telling myself that the decision to do so was to prove to myself I could fight should I need to. The part of me that is a total doormat, and accepts any type of attention from any type of person, even when I know full-well how bad the situation could turn in terms of my safety."

P: "How about you choose an object in the room to represent this part of yourself."

I looked around the room and saw the perfect object, a cute little teddy bear with outstretched arms, as if it were asking for a hug. P asked me to then find an object to represent the part of myself that wants nothing to do with relationships, to be self-sufficient and devote my emotions to me, myself and I, only. Scanning the room again, which is filled with cute little knick-knacks, ornaments, art, plants, teddies, I spotted a little china cat, sitting tall and proud, which I thought was perfect because to me a cat represents "I do not need you".

P asked me go over to the teddy and hold it, after placing the cat in the seat I was originally sat in.

She asked: "What does this part of you want from the part of you that wants to be alone, and self-sufficient? Try to use an "I" statement and ask for what you want, or need, from this other part of you."

I replied, after thinking for a while:

"I need guidance, I need to learn how to stop being so impulsive, to stop seeking gratification that I know is toxic or false. I need to learn delayed positive reinforcement, I need to learn how to say no when I want or need to, and I need to learn and implement these lessons fast so that I can pass them onto my child."

P: "Now come back to your original seat and put yourself in the shoes of your other self. You've just been asked for help from this little 7-year-old you. How do you respond?"

Me: "The first thought that comes to mind is to almost laugh and say 'You're a lost cause, there's no helping you'."

I then paused, knowing that this isn't the right way to feel about myself if I want to make any progress whatsoever. Something suddenly clicked inside my head, I genuinely felt the switch flick and I immediately gained a new perspective. All of a sudden, I looked over at this little teddy bear, and instead of seeing my little 7-year-old self, the child that I was so used to thinking so negatively of, I saw a child that was all of a sudden no longer me, but just an innocent little 7-year-old girl to whom I had no relation to whatsoever.

I said:

"Okay, something just switched in me and I don't hold that view anymore, I don't know if this is because I'm a mother-to-be, or for some other reason, but all of a sudden all I can see is an innocent little girl who doesn't know any better, a little girl I don't know, and I have the overwhelming urge to do absolutely whatever I can to help her feel better, treat herself better, and to not follow the path that I followed."

P: "What is it you would do for her?"

Me: "I would to sit her on my lap, should she be okay with that, and hug her and never let go. I would to tell her it's not her fault, that she was innocent and didn't deserve to go through the things she went through."

P: "Now If you think about it, what mother would allow her 7-year-old daughter to go on Tinder? What mother would allow her 7-year-old to walk into town at night all alone, through dark and secluded routes?"

This hit me hard, what she was telling me was: the parts of myself that would engage in these risky, self-sabotaging behaviours, were merely the acts of my 7-year-old self, who innocently just didn't know any better. My 7-year-old self who knew that she was on this earth to be used over and over again for others satisfaction and pleasure, because that was all she had been shown, through many experiences as she grew in physical age. That this little 7-year-old repeated those behaviours for years and years and years, not knowing that all along there was always the opportunity to change the path she lead and followed.

At this point I think P could tell that this was hitting me quite hard, she asked:

"How are you doing?"

I said: "Honestly this is really hard, I feel raw, like my skin has been peeled off and I am sat here fully exposed, and that if anything touches me it will burn like hell. But this is good, I feel good, this is absolutely necessary, and hard work is the only way I'm ever going to grow. I also feel the need to go home and write about this because this is huge for me in terms of gaining a new perspective, and moving closer to possibly being able to forgive myself for the life I've lead and to hopefully move the fuck on."

Sadly I don't remember much else of the session following this core segment, but I know none of it was as important as this experience. I really hope that if anyone reads this, that it may help them to realise, or at least be open to the chance that, other ways of viewing yourself and your decisions and mistakes do exist. That the way you have viewed yourself and put yourself down most of your life, doesn't have to be the only way you treat yourself forever. Now, this crazy experience only happened today, so of course I'm yet to put the learnings into actions, but the story itself is enough to at least get me thinking in a new light, which I am so grateful for the opportunity to do so. I have spent more of my life than I can remember, viewing myself as the biggest most useless waste of oxygen that there is, and sadly I would say I do still feel that way currently, however I can feel those thoughts and beliefs losing their power over me, and I can see a light for the first time in a very long time. There is hope for change in my behaviours, patterns, decisions, and I can't wait to explore the new opportunities and perspectives that this experience has opened up for me.

If you read all of this, thank you - and if you feel it was a total waste of your time, sorry lol

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