Tag: theraputic relationship

SO OUR THERAPIST RESPONDED, SHE’S AWESOME

SHE RESPONDED TO ONE OF OUR EMAILS. SHE ALWAYS KNOWS JUST WHEN TO RESPOND. OUR AGREEMENT IS SHE READS THEM AND DOESNT RESPOND, BUT SOMETIMES SHE BREAKS IT AND RESPONDS ANYWAY..LIKE NOW, AND WE LOVE HER FOR IT…
LIZ

Hi All, Just to let you know I have received all the emails, and wanted to respond briefly. I really do get the various reactions and want to honour them. The anger the uncertainty the wanting to connect the wanting perhaps to push me away the curiosity the sense of abandonment the hurt….I have not left you behind I carry you all with me.
By the way I didnt forget about the book, I made a recording of it…but the playback was on slow and couldnt figure out how to rectify that…or send it! We will figure it out together.
Keep well
Eileen

Back to basics

hi. my name is brianna. i am 18.

today in therapy me and eileen talked for the very first time. we talked about a lot of things. mostly to do with our system, the way we are set up, that was hard, since very few people actually know about how we’re set up, about our system structure.

we’ve been experiencing a lot of dissociation over the past couple of months. insiders have become activated, that havent been out in a very long time, and its becoming a huge problem.

mainly these are dark insiders. there is a lot of internal conflict, because some of the darks want to engage in therapy, they want to be seen, validated, etc. while others do not. others are quite happy to try to interfere and sabotage the therapy process.

eileen thinks the best thing for us to do now is go back to basics. try to work on managing our emotions, so that we can gain some stability again.

she said we need to just put the breaks on, not work on memories or do EMDR again for a while, until we can get to grips with the dissociation and with managing feelings.

I happen to agree with her. I think thats for the best.

we did some breath work today. that was hard. she noticed that when we breathe we take very shallow breaths. she did some breathing exercises with us, and then she asked us to set up a committee of 3 of us to do these exercises each day, four times a day for a few minutes.

we have an easter break next week, which is going to be hard for us to get through. we’ll manage but its always hard. at least we’ll see dr. barry during our easter break so that is something at least.

But for right now, its back to basics for us, back to the very start, trying to manage big feelings and emotions. doing work with eileen on theraputic strategies that we can use to do this.

PIXIE, YOU HAVE rights…

I SAT OPPOSITE EILEEN, STARING AT THE FLOOR. NOT KNOWING WHAT TO SAY NEXT. WE’D JUST TALKED ABOUT MY SEVERE DEPRESSION, THAT WAS HARD.
PIXIE, CAN YOU LOOK AT ME?
I CANT, EILEEN, I, I, I CANT…
OK THEN, BUT CAN YOU LISTEN TO WHAT I AM GOING TO SAY NEXT?
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO A GOOD LIFE
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO HAVE FUN
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO LIVE
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO BE
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO YOUR FEELINGS
YOU HAVE RIGHTS, PIXIE
YOU ARE A PERSON IN YOUR OWN RIGHT, WITH RIGHTS.
ME, SAYING NOTHING, STILL LOOKING AT THE FLOOR…
DO YOU HEAR ME PIXIE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?
YES, I SAY QUIETLY.
EILEEN PLACES A HAND GENTLY ON MY KNEE…HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HEAR ME SAY THAT TO YOU?
I CANT ANSWER. I’M CRYING NOW. TEARS FALL AS I SOB.
I ALWAYS THOUGHT I DIDNT HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXIST…

avoiding the hard stuff in therapy

this weeks been very hard. having no therapy session wasnt good.
but if i am honest, i was happy in a way. why? because i didnt want to face the hard stuff. i wanted to run away and hide from it.
eileen sent me a text on tuesday. she said she’d recieved some emails and did i want to talk. i called her back and we did talk. but she was a little bit upset with us.
she said we are pushing her away. and then sending emails to tell her things after we’ve been distant with her and what is that about?
she challenged me and i was so uncomfortable. i said i didnt expect a response. that i didnt know why we’d sent them really.
she said its like we’re setting her up. because when she gets the distressing emails, what is she to do with them? since we’ve made an arrangement that she doesnt respond to emails outside of session unless its an emergency.
the fact that we werent in session this week, she said she couldnt gage how we were and what was going on for us.
so yeah. we had a frank discussion and she said its very important to talk this through on monday during the session.
I’m nervous. I hate it when we fight. We’re not really fighring but it feels uncomfortable. It feels like she’s mad at us but she said she isnt.

When make believe and reality collide

I thought our therapy session today was going to be a therapy review. That is what we had planned for last week. But things changed today. We met a very young part. A 7 year old named Jessy. Jessy was very traumatised. It all started when Eileen asked about the weekend. I told Eileen that some insiders were panicking, and they’d had a pretty bad weekend. I tried to tune in to see if I could get a sense of why, because I didnt know, all I knew was that kids were struggling with memories. And I was starting to merge with them and the feelings that were coming up. Eileen asked me if she could speak to one of them and I said I thought so if they were willing to speak. So I stepped back and left a space for whoever wanted to come out. And that is when Jessy came forward. She was crying hysterically. Eileen held her for a few minutes and talked softly to her. “dont worry, I am here” “your ok” “You dont have to tell me anything” “I just want to talk to you and figure out what you’ve been told by the bad people, I dont want you to tell me about memories, lets just sit here and talk for a few minutes, and then together we can figure out what is going on ok?”. At this point she didnt know her name. She only knew her age. When her tears subsided, she asked Eileen “will you hold my hand?” Eileen gently took one of her hands in both of hers. Rubbing her fingers softly against her palms, she started talking to her again. And then it all came tumbling out. How the bad people told her they were always going to be watching her, how they said they planted eyes in her tummy, and they’d always be able to see what she was up to and hear what she was saying, how she could never tell anything to anyone because if she did something bad would happen to her. Again Jessy starteed crying hysterically. Reaching across to us Eileen hugged her tightly. “you are so brave” “they were so very mean” “I am so so sorry for what they did to you”. Then she slowly tried to go about explaining to Jessy that what they said wasnt true. That your eyes have to be connected to your brain in order to see. And that even if they said they did, that they actually did not plant eyes inside of her tummy. But since she was just little her imagination made her believe that what they said was true. She asked Jessy if she knew the difference between make believe and real things. She didnt. So it was then doubly hard to explain it to her. Jessy is stuck, stuck in a time when we were 7 years old. For her, time has stood still. She still thinks we are in dublin. Eileen asked her if she knew anyone inside, she knew a few of the kids and Jade. So Eileen asked Jade to come sit with her and support her. Then I also sat with them. I was kind of in shock with all the info that Jessy was giving, I hadnt been aware that the abusers had said this stuff to her. Eileen kept on explaining about the body being older now, about jade and me being grown ups, and other things about our abusers being cruel and mean and tricking her. I think after a while she got it. Sorta. I think it will take a long time and a lot of therapy before she fully understands. Although she did say she wanted what eileen was saying to be true. It makes me incredibly sad to think of her being told that someone would put eyes inside her and watch her and do bad stuff to her if they found out she’d told. No 7 year old child should have to struggle with that. It was an incredibly sad session. Eileen asked myself and Jade if we would support Jessy this week. I told her she didnt have to worry we are both happy to do that. I am drained after todays session. I think its going to be an early night for me tonight.

carol anne

therapy review

so towards the end of our session yesterday eileen asked me if i thought therapy was going well. she asked if i was happy with how things were progressing. i said i was. we talked for a few minutes about therapy and then she asked me to take some time this week to look at my progress and to look at our work together over the past five years. it will be five years that we’ve been working together next week. i cant believe its been that long! it sure doesnt feel that long. it feels so surreal. sometimes i wonder if i’ve made any progress in that time. sometimes i feel as if i havent. its like taking two steps forward and three steps backwards. its slow going. if i really sit down and think about it though i can see changes in us over that time. like better communication between insiders, changes in certain insiders behaviours, attitudes, etc. like liz, for example. i think liz is the insider whose changed the most over the time we’ve been in therapy with eileen. anyway this week i am to look and notice and see if i can think about our progress and then next week during our session we are going to do a sort of review, just to see where things are at. we dont normally do reviews this is just a sort of one off. it will be interesting if nothing else. and maybe looking at the therapy process and how we’ve changed will give me some perspective going forward.