Thrown in the cot…. Trauma and abandonment.

So there was The Mum, stressing out because the baby wouldn’t stop crying. It turns out that the 6 week old baby had colic too. The Mum had, in the words of the client  “had had enough” and threw the baby into the cot to cry itself to sleep. Poor thing….

Really?

Lets stop here for one moment and pause before we look at how the baby experienced this. The mum was the adult in this situation and the mum has a duty of care to that baby, no matter what. No. Matter. What.

Right?- so lets look at this…

Mums (many new and very young baby mums) ARE pushed to the extreme limits of tiredness, fatigue, stress, appetite reduction, cold cups of tea, cold dinners. Emotional reserves are in massive depletion at times, the ability to function like a normal human being and often they resemble a walking zombie. However, they have a responsibility to the child they gave birth to and there is a line you do not step over. That line is neglect, trauma and abuse. Too often we (mums) can feel as though we are pushed towards this, particularly if you have a newborn who is upset/grouchy/tired/uncomfortable/poorly/wet/hungry/lonely/confused/cold/hot/inconsolable/frightened/in pain/bored/sensitive and the list goes on…

New mums are often overwhelmed by the internal checklist of what a baby is trying to communicate and as they go through the list, getting it incorrect they can become very stressed and upset themselves. What is clear is communication between baby and mum is not happening in a coherent way. This can lead to miscommunication, flared levels of incompetence, anger, even rage and as in this case, apathetic “I don’t care anymore!” Attunement, resonance and regulation are no longer on the same page, there is no integrated brain functioning from either mum or baby and this leads to a breakdown of the relationship and the inherent survival needs of the baby.

So whilst I understand that mums can and do struggle with this form of communication and understanding of their babies needs I am concentrating here in this blog how the baby may have understood their world at this stage. We are able to talk about how we as mums find the world, there are magazines devoted to ‘how to be a mum’. Many of which omit the very issue highlighted above for reasons I can only attribute to fear. However it is a fact that mums do get ‘to the end of their ‘temper’, ‘line’, ‘tether’ or what ever word they use. It IS frustrating at times. Many schools/magazines and media do not teach this, many parents do not teach their children. Some children are having children and are unable to understand their own needs, let alone another child/babies needs. We often do not have time or patience to sit and work it out with a supportive network. This really sucks and its the babies who are left to deal with the fallout.

Which brings me to the baby in the cot. The baby who is ill and frightened and has no words or way other than through crying to communicate this. The baby tried, the baby cried to tell her mum how she felt. The baby did the best she could to communicate her distress, she probably curled her legs up towards her tummy if she had colic. She did not have the understanding you or I do with language and facial expressions, she could not say “it hurts mummy, I don’t like it, make it stop”. She tried with all of her might and she screamed, cried and kicked.

A babies brain at this stage and age of life is operating mainly on the right hand side as the left side is not developed properly. ( BRAIN FACTS: this surprisingly does not happen until they are about 18 months of age and continues at a very fast speed until the child is about 3. After this it still continues to develop at a fast pace, however the first three years is the time in which the quickest brain growth happens and has the most impact on brain development)

On our left hand side is where we mostly use and store language and as you can see this is not developed in a 6 week old so it is impossible for a baby to communicate in this way.

So, in this example she uses the right hand side and makes noises in order to convey how she feels to the world, to her mum in this case. She coos, cries and gurgles and she ‘sees what happens’ when she does this. Its like babies are scientists from the very offset (many theories talk about this as a concept). So she experiments with these behaviours. The baby does not yet  ‘understand’ what a feeling is so she can become very disorientated/frightened/confused/fearful/excited and so on. She gets a warm feeling after being fed and she begins to associate this with her behaviour of ‘cry’– ‘get fed’ –‘feel satisfied/full/warm/held/nurtured’ (you may have another word/feeling here).

However colic is something that can disrupt this satisfaction and I believe that we don’t fully understand what is happening with a ‘colicy baby’ due to the communication issue. However what we do know is babies who have colic scream. A Lot. It must hurt? I wonder exactly what a baby understands when the pain begins. What do they feel? Is it the same as toothache, a grazed knee or open heart surgery without anaesthetic? It must be very frightening to have this level of distress and pain and fear? No wonder babies scream, it must be a desperate attempt to convey the seriousness and sheer horror of the event?

So now I feel I have begun to describe this baby’s world. She is terrified and this starts a fear response happening in her brain and her body is in pain. She possibly ‘thinks’ (but not cognitively) that she will die. It’s at this stage she tries her best to tell her mum whats happening, she looks for help, she looks to the one person who she ‘should’ be able to trusty to be there for her in times of need. And at this very moment, mum throws her in the cot. physically. “to cry it out”

The trauma response in her brain which is telling her “this is it, you’re going to die” has just been escalated to a whole new level. I suspect her brain goes into ‘overload’, Her vagal system (from her stomach to her brain) sends the brain a message to ‘short circuit’ and she ‘switches off’. Nothing. Numbness. Shock. Disassociation, or possibly she even faints in sheer terror and pain (the vagal system can override the brain and can make this happen).

And so the pattern is laid down. She experiences pain and fear. She asks for help  in the only way she knows how and she is tossed aside, abandoned, left to die, unwanted, alone, cannot trust anyone to meet her needs, forgotten, bad.

Bad.  Foe feeling a pain, Bad for being, Bad for existing, The world does not want her. She should cease to exist. Poor, poor baby.

So the client enters therapy for an issue that my have been unrelated, this experience described above may happened only once, perhaps it was common, we may never know as memory formation at 6 weeks of age happens in a very different way to when you are this age. Experiences like this become you, your story and a feeling that you cant put your finger on. What I can say is even just the once it does have an impact on a babies developing brain, their view of the world and very probably how they continue to function in the world from that point on. Once is once too often.

I imagine this baby developed a pattern of feeling unwanted, rejected and abandoned by life and those who were supposed to love her unconditionally and in times of need provide the warmth and nurture she needed in order to recover. I suspect she was very lonely. I suspect she was very sad. A trauma pattern so early in life that it became her way of being in the world.

When I decided to write this blog I considered the amount of shame it may cause the mum to feel should she (or any other parents) read this, who have engaged in behaviours like this with their babies, however I felt it was important for this information to be passed on in a preventative way for new mums, dads and anyone who looks after a young baby. Adults can enter into a dialogue about what they have done and try to make sense of their behaviours compared to a baby who develops this as their core understanding of themselves in the world. That to me is the more important issue.

Guest Blog: Cyber Trauma Q & A

Please click on the links below to take you to the blog posts.

Enjoy

http://www.dontbelievethemask.com/cyber-trauma-identifying-averting-surviving-part1/ …

http://www.dontbelievethemask.com/cyber-trauma-expert-interview-catherine-knibbs-part-2/

Maturation versus ‘just aging’

http://www.thinkinghumanity.com/2014/07/6-signs-you-are-actually-maturing-not-just-aging.html?m=1

The Voracious Wolf

I want to tell you a story today.  From a guided imagery therapy session. I have permission from the woman to use this story.

Take from it what you will. I understand why this client made the choices she did shortly after this experience, I hope you can too.

 

As this is guided imagery, the happenings are completely within the clients imagination and from the unconscious so things may change form or name and this just goes to show how powerful this tool can be.

 

So are you seated comfortably?

Then I shall begin.

 

Once upon a time……

 

There was a young girl who lived just outside a wood. She was at harmony with the surrounds of nature and loved to wake up to the sound of birds, hear no traffic and be able to enjoy her life to the full. Her favourite thing to do was visit neighbours and potter around looking to see what animals she could see. She fell in love with a fox named Amber that had been rescued by a man. He kept chipmunks and had an aviary full of wild and colourful looking species. The girl used to wonder what they were all thinking when she stood looking at them. They were calm and yet bore no malice to the fact they were locked up. It was the fox however that caught the girls eye and captivated her heart. It looked so scared, so alone and yet so friendly. Over one eye it had a stunning white mark. She would remember the feeling she had when she was near the fox for a very long time. She was told by the man she could not touch the fox, but the girl longed to hold and gently caress/stroke the fox as it looked so lonely. She felt so very saddened by this fact. So she tried her best to ‘say’ to the fox it was okay and she would always come and visit through her eyes. The fox seemed to understand and often blinked very slowly and calmly towards her. Words did not need to be spoken there was a connection that felt good and caring. She often visited the fox and then one day it was gone. No resin given by the man. She was heartbroken. She put it behind her in time and moved on.

 

A long time passed and the girl grew into a beautiful woman who continued her love of foxes and many other animals. She moved to a little house near to a wood with a small paved front garden which did not have a fence. The paved area, which arced outside the front of the house had a drop of about half a foot just after it. The ground below was like brown mulch and it spread about in a large arc before the woods that lay behind the house.

 

Every morning the woman would wake up to birds singing and flittering around the garden, picking up bits of food she would place out for them. She would come out into the sunshine and scatter bits of food for the birds, hedgehogs, mice, rats and voles, and some more substantial bits for the foxes and badgers. She would collect her wood for the roaring fire that sat inside the house and then return into the house for a while and feed her animals and children that lived inside. She would then return to sit in the sunshine in her front garden. She would sit very quietly and watch the animals come to visit her, each of them giving her a knowing nod. They would eat their fill and leave. Some of them even came up to her and seemed to tame. After a few years the animals were not frightened and quite often the woman would talk to them in a caring way whilst she pottered around and cleared the weeds.

 

One evening the woman noticed a scabby looking wolf. It was scrawny and looked old beyond its years. It was grey and its hair was matted in places. It sniffed the air towards the house but stayed behind the trees. The woman waited and then slowly went to the house and brought out some food. She placed it at the edge of the garden and retreated. The wolf just stared. The woman decided to go back in the house and watch through the window. Surely enough the wolf came forward and scoffed the food down, snarling and snapping whilst eating and nearly choking on it. It was famished. The woman felt so very sad as the wolf ran back into the woods.

 

The following day the wolf returned and the woman again put food down and retreated inside. Again the wolf ate voraciously. The woman decided after a couple of days of this to put out so much food that when the wolf ate it would surely satisfy the wolfs hunger. She thought he must have been starved. The wolf came again and this time she connected with his smouldering green eyes, they looked at her like the fox did. She suddenly felt so sad and had a longing to take care of the wolf. As the wolf started to eat he was joined by other wolves who ran at him and bit him and snarled and took his food. He just stood there. When they had their fill and there was no food left he followed them looking forlorn and hungry. He looked back at the woman and she screamed “bastards”. She hated those wolves already. Were they his pack? Did they follow him? Why didn’t they let him eat? She was angry and vowed to take care of the wolf.

 

So the woman sat patiently and placed out food for the wolf daily. If she caught sight of the other wolves she would shout and scare them all away. She only wanted to feed the wolf with the green eyes. The wolf started to show up at different times and often she would leave the front door open for the wolf to see the cosy fire and hearth, soft cotton rug and old wooden furniture and she would place the food away from the edge of the paved area and nearer to the house. As time went by the wolf ventured nearer to the house and the woman would talk in a soft friendly voice and try to show the wolf that he was welcome. No matter how much food the wolf ate, he never seemed satiated.

 

The wolf once allowed the woman to see deep into his green eyes and let the woman stroke him before running away. Curiosity got the better of the woman and she followed him. The wolf was so hungry he was visiting other houses around the wood and stealing from any available source. He would climb into sheds and steal someone else’s food. He was so hungry. He would return to his pack and they would all be sleeping. They were all full and fat wolves. If the wolf tried to go near them they would growl in their sleep. The woman wondered why he would return to this? they dint care if he was there or not and when he was they would hurt him. He must have felt dreadful, alone and hungry most of the time. When he was scavenging it must have made his tummy feel better for a short while, but if the food wasn’t given surely it must have tasted tainted?

 

The woman kept the feeding routine up for a very long time in the hope she could show the wolf that her house was warm and had plenty of food. The wolf did come into the house and often would eat and then sleep in front of the fire looking cosy and relaxed. However this could only happen if the woman had moved all of the other animals and her children out of the way as the wolf would snap and snarl at anything. The wolf then stole food from her in her own house. Yet still the woman put food out for the wolf. He continued to eat her food, occasionally letting her stroke him and once or twice placed his head on her knee and looked at her as if she knew his pain. She felt for the wolf and wanted to look after him. He continued his pattern of stealing from other people and returning to the woman. He would never get his fill for the fear that kept him alive was also the very same fear that kept him bound to his pack. 

 

The woman continued to feed the birds, the foxes and the rodents and she took good care of her house where her animals and children were beginning to flourish and change. She had two small elephants that she devoted her time to and loved them very much. Yet still each day she found time to put food out for the wolf and wait for his company. By now he was gaining in confidence and would snap, snarl and bear his broken yellow teeth at any of the other animals that the woman cared for. They seemed to back away when he was there, but soon returned when he had gone. The woman gained much pleasure from the calmer, sweet animals that made her feel wonderful. yet still she wanted to help the wolf. The other animals would tell her he was wicked and she needed to not feed him, but the woman saw into the deep green eyes and she knew she could feed him and care for him.

 

One day the wolf came and sat by the side of the woman. She was crying and had not noticed him approach. She had found a dead fox and she had realised that she was grieving from her past. She looked at the wolf and saw his misery and pain in his eyes. It matched hers. She had not known where the fox had gone to when she was very little and she was sad. Suddenly the wolf looked scared and then he bit her. She cried out in pain and she cried loudly. The wolf showed no mercy and began to back away towards the house. The woman was confused, sad, angry and felt betrayed. She shooed the wolf away who by now was looking towards the fire and the hearth. The woman screamed NO! and shut the front door. She wanted to kick the wolf hard but was in deep agony from the bite. How could the wolf do this? He ran away in the direction of the houses he used to steal from. The woman bid him good riddance.

 

The following morning the woman set about building a fence around her house. It was a good fence and It would keep the wolf out. The woman knew this meant that foxes would struggle to see her and she resigned herself to the fact that this may have to be how it is for now. The birds and smaller animals could still visit. The elephants could play in safety and come and go as they pleased and the woman would be safe from the voracious wolf she had trusted. She could see him from afar and feels pity and sadness for him. But she will never feed him again. He may even starve to death. The wolf chose to bite the hand that offered it the most care, love and warmth and in return had now lost that forever. The woman knew that the pack would bite and snarl and never give the wolf what it needed or wanted, yet the wolf made that choice.

 

 

 

 

I wonder what will happen to the elephants and the woman as time goes by?

Sheet Grabbing. (AKA Moving out of script)

Sheet grabbing. 

(aka moving out of script for those who would like the technical language)

 

Have you ever had one of those dreams or moments when you are or feel like you are falling out of bed and you panic and cling for dear life to the sheet on the bed? 

Does the sheet grabbing help you? 

That’s the feeling I want to talk about.

 

Loosing your script or life story can feel a little bit like this. It’s scary. When you get that falling feeling it’s like there is a cavern below you as deep as the sea or worse…a never ending depth, an eternity of pain, suffering and that scene out of my head as a little girl of not understanding and also understanding forever nothingness. #juxtapositionoffear

The panic that rises up is tantamount to sheer terror. You grab on to the sheet as hard as your hands will let you and perhaps you begin wildly swinging your legs across the bed in the hope that you have saved yourself from the fall, and do you save yourself?

That feeling.

 

So how does this equate to loosing your script or moving out of it?

Let’s talk about how you would know.

Could you predict the day or moment you will feel like you are falling out of bed?  

No. You can’t and neither can you predict when you will notice that your script is changing. It’s so subtle, it’s like an army of imps have crept up on you like the shoemakers elves at night and decide that tonight is the night they will roll and push you out of bed and see what happens! 

 

Recognising your script or life story in the first place is a journey in itself!  (Perhaps another blog will be about how this occurs during therapy or just plain ol’ life itself) 

So, what about when do you recognise your patterns, when do you recognise ‘those feelings’ that seem to appear time and time again? What do you do when you notice these feelings or patterns? How do they occur and what are the similarities in any of the situations in which you find yourself experiencing them? What is the catalyst for this happening in the first place? Hmm. That’s a toughy.

 

How would you know you are “moving out of script” I hear you shouting if you don’t know what it is in the first place? In a very simple and short explanation, very much like those trailers you get before a film, you know the ones that have just enough excitement and spoiler ratio to make you either a) Want to watch it or b) not. Well the answer is, you may not know. Or you may know. I don’t know you so I can’t say which one you will be. Great help huh?

 

The long story, cut very short for the blog is, with help and a trained ‘ear’ you can start to decipher the meanings and feelings into your script (life story) and then you can begin to recognise when you are choosing to make new and re-decisions (another term I will discuss at a later date) and move into a new script. 

 

Re-

Decision. 

To decide. 

To change. 

That’s the biggy for me in all of this, I began to notice my script, those patterns, feelings and ‘pay offs’ that were almost a daily occurrence about a year ago from the time of this blog. I can recall exactly the very moment that I questioned just what the ‘deuce’ I was actually doing with my life and how I didn’t want these feelings to be part of me and my story any more. I was sick of them, sick of feeling this way, I deserved better. I questioned what I wanted, where I wanted to be, who with, how and most importantly of all the changes I would need to make it. I felt terrified. All I knew was my story, what would the consequences be if I changed?

 

My childhood messages from my family and their scripts too were constantly zooming round in my head and if I paid attention to them they grew legs and arms and their voices grew exponentially louder. I had a cacophony of injunctions (these are messages we swallow without question, such as “don’t think (for yourself)), mini critics and judges running amok. I feared any new decision because my ‘phantasies’ were even better than any horror movie or twisted Disney cartoon you could put on a screen. (If only there was a way to access this for film makers..anyway I digress). I awaited my fate with baited breath that if, if I changed anything about how I behaved it would end up in chaos and disaster.

 

And it did!!! And it was okay. I was okay. This was the reality check, after all the fear, anxiety and scardy cat behaviours, it’s all turning out okay. Yes there are still moments I check the sheet for its ability to catch me if I fall, however I now know if I fall it will be okay. Yes it took almost 7 or. 8 months to start changing my responses to people and my processes of my thinking patterns and ultimately my behaviours and how I felt about myself moving forward. And I did it. 

 

I’m having a “I’m moving out of script party” at the moment and I foresee this being a rest of my life party. This is exhilarating and I want to shout why did no one help me with this before. Perhaps that because I wasn’t ready. Well bring on the disco music, boogie lights and new dancing partners! 

Here is a link to song that I think encapsulates my last year. 

If it doesn’t work Look up “Say Something” By A Great Big World

The Old, New, Newer me for 2014

<The 'Old' New me.

So whilst everyone fills up the internet with promises of the new 'me's' I'm turning my prism, my frame of reference and I'm looking for the 'Old' (young) new me.
Let me break that last sentence down; I'm looking deeper within myself for a part of me that's pretty old now, but she is also very young and will become the new(er) me. I'm bringing out my inner child. The part of me that was (and is) intuitive, excited by life and new challenges and looking forward to my new future. I have and continue to get rid of the things that did not serve me well in order for this inner child to feel brave enough to show herself and become who I really am and always have been. So I will take you on the journey of the Old, New me.

This journey starts with the me that has been around for some time. It's the me that I wasn't really truly comfortable and happy with. There was something missing, something that was pushed away and silenced. I did not know what this was, I couldn't hear and yet the silence was deafening. I decided to try and work out what this was, with the help of someone else.

“When I loved myself enough I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits- anything that kept me small. My judgment called it disloyal. Now I see it as self loving.” Kim McMillen.

A beautiful quote that I did not fully understand when I began my training as a therapist and entered into my own personal therapy. I was working through my day to day stuff in order to try and understand who I was underneath this and why I behaved, thought and felt like I did. I managed to identify some things that were not good for me and began to change things. Some were small incremental habits other things were monumental life changes. These ‘big changes’ do not feel easy, nor comfortable and I will use another quote as an example;

“Man cannot discover new Oceans unless he has the courage to loose sight of the shore” -Andre Gide

Indeed change must and can only occur by leaving those very things behind that are no good, cause you pain or hurt and distress. I was on a new journey and this time I was on the ship that was sailing away from the shore. I felt uneasy, unsure and most of all frightened. I could see the shore disappearing and although I was excited for my new journey I so wanted to hold onto the familiar and feel ‘safe’ or perhaps stable in my world as I knew the daily protocol, backwards and inside out. I knew all too well that days of happiness would be outweighed by more days of hurt and sadness. All the while there would be a voice saying “change, move on, sail away!” I could not hear.

This led me to think about how difficult change can be for people, (myself included) particularly those who enter into therapy because they are in distress or are hurting because things that do not serve them well are causing them emotional, psychological or even physical pain. Talking about these issues can seem far easier than having to make a decision that means they may have to ‘leave sight of the shore’ and make the changes that help them move forward. This can take time and can be difficult. It depends on the strength of the bonds that bind people to the very things that hurt them. Also the unconscious reasoning that sits behind these decisions. There is a similar concept in ‘trauma bonds’ as they are known. It can seem confusing. Why won’t a person leave the very thing that hurts them?

Perhaps you are confused as to why I am discussing trauma bonds. Well it is these very bonds that keep people stuck on one shore, too afraid to leave and discover new lands and oceans. These feelings of difficulty can be associated with leaving and being able to discover newness. The very newness that lies within them. Perhaps the difficulty has been there since childhood. Perhaps the bonds that tie them to their hurt are connected with one person/situation on a deep level of love and longing. Perhaps the uncertainty overpowers the desire, wants and needs to move away. Perhaps the voice of reason and intuition isn’t being heard. Perhaps this takes time. Perhaps you need to listen more carefully. So be still and be quiet and you will hear.

The discovery of this voice of reason and intuition can be very powerful. The voice brings with it excitement and fear in what can feel like overwhelming doses. The cognitive dissonance that happens can be irrational and rational at the same time. It feels wonderful and scary. It’s like an adrenaline rush of clarity and confusion. What it is though is calm and stable enlightenment and awareness. It is the inner child’s voice who has enough determination to begin to say how they feel and they begin to shout. And boy do they start to bellow. Like a toddler who has learned to speak the shouting becomes louder, more profuse and confident. The voice becomes a trusting ally. It becomes the old instinctive, intuitive and known you. The newborn, renewed and blossoming you. Evolving like a butterfly from a cocoon of misery, hurt and trauma something beautiful begins to emerge and with it comes a voice so sweet, truthful, caring and nurturing that it also hurts at first. Not in a cruel way but with an almost apathetic “where were you all this time when I needed you?” feeling. It can almost feel like betrayal. But then the child like inner voice whispers, “I never left you”, “It was too noisy for you to hear me”, “the voices/noises in your life were strong and loud”, “I stayed and waited, I knew you would hear me when you were ready”

I can hear my inner child. My new me is in fact a very old part of me who is young and wise beyond her years. She has more knowledge and wisdom of the world and chooses to care in a way no one else can. She is the part of me that I love and cherish. I am quiet and I can hear her in every moment. I love my inner child. She is the new me, who is in fact the old me. I’m looking forward to my new adventures with her.

I hope you can begin to hear your inner child and learn to meet them. I wish you all the very best for 2014 and your new journey, whatever that may be.

/em>

I love you, (I abuse you) I love you, I really do…

#teamnigella
Recent media coverage of Nigella Lawson’s relationship spurred this particular post.

I love you

A spoken sentence so powerful it can make your heart (and amygdala) seem to be the only part of you that works. The impact of this sentence is like feeling immortality and an infinite amount of euphoria in a fraction of a second. It is more powerful than any manufactured drug on earth. If this is said whilst your partner stares into your eyes it makes it even more of an impact. Your heart feels like it is fit to burst and you think no one else can understand how you feel at that very moment. I want this feeling to stay, to never end, I want to be adored by this person to this level of ‘loved’.

Or so I thought.

When reality strikes and you realise that this has been said in a manipulative way, or even half heartedly because the person, your partner, who said it lied and does not really understand what love is or the impact of this sentence, it can feel like it has been spoken with a raw, almost scalpel sharp tongue. It cuts deeper than any surgical instrument and leaves a twisted scar and leaves you feeling that there would be no way to ever fix or heal.

I have seen everyday people speak of these feelings, clients in the therapy room, celebrities and then the time that it was me to myself. I had been wounded in a similar way and my heart had been slashed to pieces rather than just one cut. I felt like I had been betrayed, lied to, manipulated and most of all set up. I questioned why people like this even existed, how could they bask in the glory of destroying another person? What would cause this? Why would anyone purposefully lie to another? I was there to help, wasn’t I? He needed me, he told me so?

Its because they are a psychopath. It’s because they cannot or choose not to empathise. It’s because they are so wounded themselves. It’s because, because, because. Perhaps I will never fully understand why. All I do know is that trying to understand another persons behaviour like this leads to a circular stuck-ness. It’s like a rocking horse, it gets you nowhere. It keeps you bound to your aches, pains and misery. It does not help you to heal.

So how do you heal? What could I say to someone in therapy or even in the street? The saying of time heals everything is horseshit. Time just moves you further away from the moment that broke you. The feelings you have stay with you. They diminish in intensity over time but they never leave. Like grief for a person who has died, the end of an abusive relationship is just as difficult, and trying. So many emotions in such a short space of time. Feelings so powerful that even breathing becomes almost impossible. Heartache so heavy you think it may physically fall out of your body. Your mind so busy bouncing between love, hate, anger, sadness and everything in between on the continuum, you think you are literally going out of your mind. Sleep so erratic that all you can see is your former partner each and every time you close your eyes. Reality becomes blurred. Hunger and sickness so wrapped up in each other that your stomach feels like it will implode and can hardly hold down any liquid.

And then ‘something’ happens. I cannot give this a name, nor can I say what this feels like specifically, which I understand is no help to the reader at this point. It’s just something that happens. It’s like the sigh or yawn that happens after a really good, wet, snotty and heartfelt cry. There is a shift somewhere in you. For me; It moved and at first this ‘something’ felt like a teeny tiny mouse squeak in the Grand Canyon. So quiet and far away. I don’t know if I went to the ‘something’ or the ‘something’ came to me. It just happened. I believe that this too will happen to anyone going through the stages of post relationship breakup, a death or whatever the reason for that grief. I fully believe that everyone has an inner ‘something’ and it will appear when it appears. It will do so at the right time for you and you will know it when it happens, deep down. If you go searching for it, it will stay hidden. It is a part of you so strong that it needs the right timing and conditions to appear.

It doesn’t stop the hurt, nor does it miraculously make things better, it just changes you; slightly and that’s enough for now. This is a great step in healing. You ‘know’ deep down that this moment has changed you, no matter how barely recognisable and slight. You are changed. And changed for the better. You have grown, gained something from the universe and this will in time increase how you feel about yourself and others.

My something was a wake up call. I had been in an emotionally abusive relationship. My good heart had been systematically toyed with and manipulated and no matter what anyone said I refused to hear their negativity, I tried to see the best in my partner. My script would play out that “maybe, just maybe he would recognise the hurt he caused others and himself? and ‘I know he has a good heart deep down, he just had a shit childhood that changed how he saw and felt about himself!’ ‘He can do this!! I can help him through this with my patience and understanding”

I tried to care, to nurture and because I looked for that one moment where ‘his something’ would miraculously whisper in his ear that now was the time to stop hurting others I failed to see the increasing signs that things were spiralling out of control. Like the little match girl I kept lighting the flame of hope, waiting for the warmth to come. It never did. The hurt, bullying, humiliation, criticism, blame and embarrassing situations increased. I couldn’t see, hear, feel or recognise this. Or perhaps I ignored my intuition? I was blinded by the feelings of ‘I love you’. I wanted to believe this wasn’t happening to me, surely he meant it when he said he loved me and I was “the one” whom he wanted, loved with all his heart and wanted to change for? This is what he told me, it must be true!!? At times I thought I was mentally ill, insane or stupid, he would tease me of this. His behaviour didn’t match him telling me he loved me. I was confused. Was I really to blame, had I caused this? Did he really love me? He was saying it so passionately and so often?

My ‘something’ turned out to be my deep rooted intuition. I knew deep within my core and kept ‘hushing up’ the nagging voice : ‘if it hurts like this it isn’t love…. People who love don’t do this kind of thing…. He’s abusing you and doesn’t mean what he says… You know you are not truly happy…’ And so on. My belief that he could change shouted the loudest and my feelings of hope were stronger than almost any other feeling. This had been reinforced with the almost oscar winning ‘I love you’ statements. This is what I hoped, dreamed and wished for more than anything. However no matter how hard anyone wishes, crosses their fingers or even asks a higher power. The ‘other’ person has to want to change and their behaviour would then reflect what they say.

My partner “didn’t want to change” he never has as he believes there is nothing to change. He’s just fine as he is and he tells people this. “It’s her with the issues not me!”. We ended. I began to change, I am still changing and growing as you read this and I will continue to do so.

As a therapist I believe anyone can grow or as my partner used to say ‘change’, but this is about change for the better, to enhance the relationships you have with people in the world. To get rid of behaviours that hurt others. This can only happen if they acknowledge that firstly there is something that needs to be changed and only IF they want to. There comes a time when we (most of us) look at ourselves in the mirror and ask, have I been the best I can be? What personal responsibility do I take for my own actions? Can I become a better person?
If they are not willing to change for the better then more fool them, others will change around them and they will be left behind. That’s such a shame.

I don’t hate my abusive ex partner, I feel at times that I should but I firmly believe our childhood experiences shape who we become and it’s a pity he had such a roughshod time. His parents probably didn’t know they too were abusive, they did the best they could with the resources and knowledge they had. They were repeating behaviours of their parents. My partner could have changed this destructive pattern if he had chosen to, but he thought the rest of the world was ‘too namby pamby and needed more aggression, discipline and good ol’ fashioned beatings’. He displays 27/30 of the characteristics of a psychopath and perhaps he will never find true happiness because of this. That makes me feel sad for him. He will never know those feelings I first described at the start of this blog. He will never ‘know’ deep within his heart the powerful nature of true love. I could cry for him.

Death of a friend.

Death.
A singular word that conveys a hundred different feelings. We all have our own relationship with death and what we believe about it. We all have words to describe it or to avoid talking about it altogether. Whatever your beliefs and feelings are they may well be similar yet so different to mine. But you will have some thoughts and feelings about this subject. Even denial is one.

So why this topic when it doesn’t seem to fit with the blog title or where I thought I was heading with my intentions? Well, I recently found out my friend; Stevie had died. I’m using this word as it what it is. I had thought about using the many phrases we all have, for example, passed away, gone, no longer here, lost even. I didn’t, I chose not to use these phrases for one simple reason. Throughout my time as bereavement worker I came across many ‘formats’ and linguistics used to denote death. None of them convey its seriousness and almost have a ‘phantasy’ element to them where perhaps the person may return. This is not so. He won’t return, he won’t pop in for a coffee, nor will I ever see him again. He is dead and this is the fact I must accept, whether I like it or even want to.

This is hard. For anyone. The realisation and acceptance is difficult to ‘get your head round’. Fact. It is also the saddest sad feeling I have ever encountered. I’m not saying I’m a ‘pro griever’, but it is something I have encountered quite a lot and can now sit with and be accepting of. (To a degree- I don’t like it but I can sit with it.) It has taken many occasions, many friends and family and even strangers to teach me this. I have learned that I know it’s the only sure bet any of us have. The odds are so fixed. At some point you will experience grief. That’s a hard fact to swallow too. What is hard for me is to see people who are experiencing it for the first time.

So I’m now writing about death and bereavement in a new way. It is a subject I can talk about candidly and openly. However, this time my children were affected..deeply. My friend was also their friend and hero. Stevie was a football coach to them and a dear friend to all of us. I found myself carrying my own grief and as a mum I carried the grief of my children. I found this particularly and deeply saddening. It was a feeling of sadness that ran very deep, sadder than I had ever been for myself. I hurt for my children as the realisation of life and it’s finite reality was brought to them. They hurt and I hurt for them.

One of the conversations we had was how both Stevie and I had chosen to be each other’s friend and how he had chosen to be their friend too. Stevie was like this with a great many people. The huge word in this whole conversation for me was ‘chosen’. This made the friendship all the more real, priceless, deep and at the same time as I realised the positive and happy aspects to it I realised just how those feelings were mirrored by grief. It was going to hurt and I was going to need time to ‘mend’ the void that would now be there. My children had this void too. This was their first experience of a friend dying. They would need time and they would need to talk too. I thought about how much loosing a friend hurts when you are a child.

I thought about primary school and how devastated I felt when I lost a friendship, albeit for a day. You know the ones, they take their bat and ball home and you think your world is going to end. Ones in my teenage years were even harder to ‘get over’. Friendships are really powerful. The invisible string that holds you together can stretch years or even miles around the world. But when it’s broken, it’s so sad. So very very sad.

My children are in this process, this is not a bat and ball scene. Stevie isn’t going to call for them, they won’t get to hear his voice anymore, they won’t be coached by him. This sucks. I have and will continue to give my children different ‘permissions to grieve’ than I had in my childhood, I will not pass on the injunctions I received. They can cry, scream, shout, laugh, sing and dance in order to grieve. Its a personal process for each of them. They need to move through it with support and also with the knowledge that it’s ok to feel whatever they feel. I’ve laughed at some of the memories we have of Stevie, I’ve cried too, all within 10 minutes of each other. This is how it is, there are no rules to grief, the only thing I can say from my perspective is it takes as long as it takes in whatever form. Just because you don’t see tears doesn’t mean I nor my children are not hurting, just because We are laughing doesn’t mean the same either. I miss Stevie. I will never forget him and I know the people he ‘infected with life, love, football and comedy’ will never forget him too.
My children will never forget him either. They miss him and right now they are very very sad.

It took a while to write this post and we will have attended the funeral by the time you read this. I needed to spend time with my children.

Ice cream and moments of clarity

Moments of clarity, how often do these happen? Probably not as often as I would like, but I am now in search of these at every given opportunity. Actually I search out being able to give myself these moments. The difference between aimlessly wandering through my day and having these moments is life changing for me. So much so I am now grieving for the last (ahem slight fib coming up) 30 something years that have passed me by without this privileged view of the world.

I spent much of my youth engaged in traditional Karate and encountered many sayings and practices from the east and thought I understood some of their meanings. I now sit with hindsight, knowledge and age and realise that I listened to what I was being told but never really heard. Perhaps I did hear, just not deep down in my soul, in my very being. The difference between now and then is I now know and understand deeply. I cannot unsee or unlearn the things I now know.

So I explained this insight to my friend whilst out on a walk. To help them understand I used an example, taken from the very moment we sat down to eat ice cream on a wall. I realised that its a lovely metaphor and perhaps other people would be able to hear, see or benefit from it, so here it is.

The way I see my life and how I am in the here and now was just like looking at the scenery around us. In front of me I had a road which I likened to life’s path. It’s constant and has direction. The traffic that flows on it is ‘like the issues, dilemmas or events that happen in our life’. Sometimes there will be a supercar, sports car or top of the range limo: life’s niceties. Other times there will be an old clapped out banger all rusty and slow: life’s not so good moments. The traffic will flow and I have no control over it. Sometimes it will be busy and seemingly gridlocked at other times, however there will also be times when no traffic is visible. Day and night the traffic flows, fast and slow, high traffic volumes and nothing at all, but still the road remains. No matter how I try to control this I cannot. Even if I installed traffic lights in an attempt to control it, nevertheless it still flows.

Above the road is the sky, this represents my internal thought processes. Like the traffic analogy I cannot control the weather pattern in the sky. Whilst I spoke to my friend we discussed and observed the clouds that we could see. There were wispy ones and substantially fluffy cotton wool ball ones. As I chatted I explained that my thoughts are like this, if I observe them they change, sometimes getting bigger and heavier, perhaps turning into rain clouds at times. Other times they literally vanish into wispy nothingness and they are no longer visible, leaving a clear patch of sky. No matter what the cloud pattern is like, the sky is constant behind. Learning to observe your thoughts comes with practice. I am no expert, there are days I’m caught in the rain before realising what’s happened. Other days I daydream and life is passing me by as I get caught up in the wispy process of thinking about my dreams and wishes.

Being in the here and now and observing the traffic and the clouds is really powerful, it allowed me to enjoy my ice cream, to hear the noise and then silence of the traffic. To see the trees and houses around me. To watch the insects going about their business and to enjoy the company of my friend. A couple of months ago I would have scoffed my ice cream, worried about crossing the road, moaned about the traffic flow and been caught up in my own thinking processes. I would have missed precious moments and feelings. I would have missed the joy of just sitting and eating an ice cream. Imagine what I have missed over the last 30 something years?