Thursday night I left several messages for the therspaist. I say 'I' but I've no idea what I said, I only know what the phone records told me the next morning. The therapist returned my call on Friday, but I didn't answer, or call her back. It was over by then, and the 5 year old and all her fear and physical and emotional pain had retreated.
A part of me still yearns for the care she still offers me and yet I cannot remove the barrier between us. I sit and hold a pillow in front of my face, I look past her through the window as I try to hide myself. I will not let her look inside of me. I refuse her, as she refused the 5 year old. Even though I know she is trying to give us another chance I refuse her and then after I leave her office parts of me sob and ache for refusing her. She asks me how I am I tell her I'm fine; I lie to her just as I lie to everyone else IRL. Even though parts of me beg and plead to tell the truth.
What would the truth even sound like?
What kind of intimacy would it take to make it possible to speak of such shame and pain?
What kind of trust would it take to believe she would listen and care and be able to emotionally stay with me?
Is there such a language?
No one can answer my questions: Why did he do that to me? Why didn't my family love me?
So the pain is still here. And the child Grace uses her childlike logic of wanting to ask for help but not wanting to admit she needs help- and not believing that she would get the help even if she did ask. That childish logic feeds my thought process and conscious conclusion that my desperate longg to reach out for her help is ridiculous and wrong. And anyway, who could possibly tell me that having experienced what I have, having lost what I have, that I could possibly be healed.
Dear therapist helped me get through the trip 2 years ago when I went back home to see my grandma. And although at times I can still feel the tenderness of her care and concern, I still won't admit that the thought makes me squirm and wish I didn't feel like I need her help. I do know enough to know that I could not go back there without her help and yet a strong part of me would not ask for her help to get through it.
The constraint between us feels absolute.
I remember 2 years ago when I felt intense fear and panic overtake me and I reached for her in childlike grief- yearning to just fold myself into a tiny little ball and just listen to her voice as I lay safely at her feet. And she would let me, she welcomed 'all' of me then.
But then I also remember the after, when I didn't feel welcome, when acceptance turned into: don't reach out knowing you will be abandoned, Grace. Make a different choice. To me that means never reach out...then you expect nothing so there can be no disappointment.
I feel I've been exiled from her care, unworthy, whether by my own doing, or by her, or maybe both. I can't do it alone and I can't reach out.
I would like nothing more tonight as I'm overwhelmed with guilt and pain then to reach out to the therapist, to run to the safety of her care...but I don't feel secure now.
It hurts.
No comments:
Post a Comment