Last year I received this email from my dear therapist (for the sake of this post, please focus on the fact that her “support and care have no strings attached”):
Grace,
Stay with me here in all of your moods, states, thoughts.....You allowed yourself to let go a bit and feel my support while you grieved on Friday. You will naturally resort to the old protective defenses of self hate, guilt, fear and vulnerability, etc. in order to"feel safe again" outside the office. The part of you that is saying"use me and be done with me" is the little girl that longed for affection and love and only knew that she could get it if she let herself be used for someone else's benefit. Thank you for sharing this with me,. as I know this is difficult stuff for you to acknowledge letalone admit to someone. My support and care for you has no strings attached and I will stay right here. In fact, you don't have to "get better" or "handle yourself" or "help yourself", and I will stay right by your side in person or in spirit. You can be "all of you" and I will hold this safely to the best of my capacity.. You can't push me away, no matter how much you may get angry at me, engage in a power struggles around whatever, etc. You can be angry and "F.. them all"without letting yourself be used by them. You can be angry at me too,for all the things that your mother and stepfather did and didn't do for you. You can let yourself feel helpless and vulnerability in my presence and I will not hurt you or let others hurt you.
Dear Therapist
Well, Dear Therapist....
There are always strings attached. In fact, lately, I find it difficult to move from the cans of ‘silly string’ that have exploded all over me from the ‘strings’ that WERE attached in my ‘relationship’ with DT. Meaning I get tied up in mammoth amounts of string when “her” life suddenly changes and I get tossed aside so she can spend her evenings in bed with her new boyfriend ~ unable to pull herself away for 5 minutes to respond to my cries for help. But, hey, in her defense, we women are ‘trained’ that way aren’t we? We grow up, find a man, fall in love…and suddenly he becomes our entire life…and we just know that we will live happily ever after…(oh, and we forget about our commitments that we had prior to ‘falling in love’)
What’s that, you say? Oh, yes, ‘therapy’ does mimic real life. Grace has been tossed aside, once again, for a man. The reality is, there's no such thing as happily ever after after. Not for people like me. People who lose faith in all human beings at an early age. And NEVER, EVER believe someone when they tell you 'there are no strings attached' - there are always strings. She was here until she she didn’t want to be. And I rate at the bottom of the list... I get that, it's the reality of the 'therapeutic relationship' - but that doesn't make it easier to swallow - it doesn't make it easier to accept. I will continue to reach out at night when I relive the past in the present, but she will no longer be “here”. But, “it is what it is”…”No Offense”!
*HAZARDOUS AREA* (Enter at your own risk~you may find yourself unexpectedly tied up in *string*!)
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