I'm still enjoying having T back: my old psychologist who was off for just over half a year. She has been so
supportive and understanding since she returned. Well, she always was but the contrast between the way I felt with her stand in (New Psychologist) and T's style has just made me so much more aware of and grateful for T's ways. I feel like I am properly starting to trust her on a new level. It may still be fragile but it's more real now. It's like her time away and return has
strengthened our relationship somehow.
From a young age I started to believe that people won't care: humans can't be trusted; they will hurt you and
leave you. T did leave and although she said she was coming back some parts didn't believe she would and it hurt so much. But, T has come back like she said she would and she has cared for me and it seems
to have been a huge thing internally. It's been somewhat 'healing' in a way (I don't like using that word but have to admit that it is the right one in this circumstance). It has helped to begin to challenge my beliefs and now parts are starting to believe that maybe you can rely on other people to help. Maybe humans can be trusted sometimes.
Since she came back we have done a bit of catching up. She was very good about my rants about new psychologist and some of my more negative experiences I had in the early months of the year, which
I needed to get off my chest when T came back. If you've read some of
my posts from during that time you'll know the gist of what I was
ranting about. She's
very skilled at being supportive without taking sides but I imagine
that
secretly she did agree with my concerns some of the time.
T has now also met Little C a couple
of times. I guess this is a pretty big thing as LC and a lot of us have wanted T to be able to talk to more parts for a long time but couldn't get past the barriers of fear and trusting that it would be OK. I'm not sure how I feel about it since it has happened. I mean, I know it's a good thing and in one way I'm happy but it's also something that I feel a lot of ambivalence about. But maybe that's for another post. I know it's progress, whether my feelings about it are always good or not.
I rang her recently whilst in
the middle of a 'crisis' for support and she talked to me on the phone
for ages. She was so supportive. I can't remember most of anything that I said to her: I was having a meltdown due to being in a very difficult situation with a lot of triggers. I remember that she talked me through how I was feeling and reassured me that it wasn't going to last forever. She said that it was a good thing that I was feeling emotions and she understood that it was so difficult because I've not had much experience of really 'feeling' emotions before. Dissociative disorders are all about not having to be aware of or experience painful feelings, so where in the past I have often been able to block things out by dissociation, it is progress that I found myself experiencing these feelings, although obviously it didn't feel like a good thing at the time.
I remember she said she wanted to reassure me that I
hadn't done anything inappropriate in contacting her. I wondered
afterwards if she had said that because of the situation where the stand
in
psychologist had told me off for contacting her between sessions saying
it was inappropriate and a boundary issue. I wondered if T was trying to
reassure me because of what had happened. Well, whether that was in her
mind or not, it was important for me to hear that because I did worry
that I shouldn't have been contacting her. I always fear being rebuked
for it. I suppose that's nothing new. I am rebuked internally by someone
every time I reach out too. I take a step in trusting and talking to
her and then that person rages up with anger and fear, shouting at me
curses for breaking the rules and prophecies imminent devastating
consequences for us all because of my actions.
She said a few things that really impacted on me and stayed in my mind for a long time after we'd talked. While we were talking on the phone, someone who has caused me a lot of
pain was walking towards me. I told her that this was happening and her
response was that she was still here talking to me and she wasn't going
anywhere. It doesn't sound like a big statement but she could not have
said anything more perfect or reassuring to me at that moment.
Some of the time she didn't say anything and I didn't say anything. She just sat with me on the other end of the line while I 'felt' and while I dealt with how I was feeling and started to calm down. She told me she wasn't going to hang up the phone until I felt OK and that she was here for as long as I needed to talk to her. I didn't feel alone. I didn't feel alone. That was the amazing and wonderful new experience in the middle of this crisis: I didn't feel alone.
