Big break

Big break. Not the dreadful snooker-based gameshow from the 90s with the bold waist-coated John Virgo and hideously unfunny bigot Jim Davidson. This one requires balls but wouldn’t benefit from chauvinistic jokes or shoulder pads (staples, as I recall, from this Saturday night fiasco that masqueraded as entertainment).

big break

This is the 19 day break that I’ll have from my therapist over the Christmas period (not that I’m counting!)

I think this might make it the longest break since I started therapy 21 months ago (not that I’m counting that either).

I’ve written about breaks before. How they are hard despite knowing that I’ve managed before. I know I’m able to weather the storm, that I’m equipped to manage the emotions it brings up and I know my therapist will return. All good solid facts.

Whilst the adult part of my psyche, which runs huge swathes of my life as a mother, wife, friend and professional person, relies on facts and information to make rational informed decisions, the wounded parts of me that I carry from the past still respond like a child. Metaphorically kicking and screaming for attention, not having the capabilities to self sooth and falling quickly into bereft feelings of abandonment when she is left to her own devices.

And, as I face 19 days without my safe person and his safe place where I can authentically be all parts of myself, I can feel the toys being lined up to throw out of the pram.

Something about facing this all whilst the ‘joy of the festive season’ is upon me seems to amplify the growing unease. Of course I most definitely do not have exclusive dibs on feeling pretty shitty at Christmas. In fact one of my key gripes about this time of year is the way it plays to the extremes. If your life is good and happy, if you have people you love and chance to be with them, enough money to keep the wolves from the door and your health the rest of the year, then the chances are you’ll have a blast as Rudolph revs up his sleigh. But, if any or all of these elude you for the other 364 days of the year, then likelihood is that, when the fat fella pops down your chimney, you might just wish he had stayed home and not added his muddy footprints to your load.

Now here comes another tricky bit. You see, I am blessed with being able to tick all the earlier above boxes. I am, and will be, surrounded by love. It won’t be Christmas at the Kardashians but we'll be adequately fed and watered and provided with more bath sets than Boots flagship store stockroom. Despite my ample figure and inability to run even as far as the lamppost at the end of the road I am, by most measures healthy. But I am not one to be filled with festive cheer (at least until about 4pm and when the bottle recycling bin receives it’s 6th deposit of the day). And this is because this time of year has, across my nearly 4 decades, swapped deliveries of gold, frankincense and myrrh for grief, abuse and emotional numbing. My Santa sack is fairly full of baggage. The bauble on the top being my father’s death on 30th December back when I was 8.

Your love of a Christmas tree will always be diminished when you mind forever sees it in the backdrop of an ambulance crew performing CPR on your strong, fit, healthy 42 year old dad.

Your feelings towards a turkey sandwich will never be that of a fun festive leftover when the memory is of your mum, raw with grief, launching the leftover platter of turkey and trimmings at the kitchen wall on new years eve.

And these are the facts which objectively means I can understand why I don’t find it easy. These are the facts which I could (and certainly should) use to offer myself some kindness and understanding. But again my slightly (!) dysfunctional parts swing into action, dismiss this information and refer me back to the earlier paragraph, telling me repeatedly that my life is good and that by allowing anything other than unbridled joy (and a 10th sausage roll) into my reality makes me selfish and ungrateful.

Along comes my inner gremlin (he’s still a total arsehole even when he is wearing snowman socks!) with loudhailer to amplify these messages. He also tells me that, if I can’t be grateful and enjoy it then I don’t deserve the good stuff and should instead focus on hurting myself or planning my permanent departure from this pity party because that’s what I deserve in response to my feelings. Sausage rolls, through self harm to suicide -impressive hey?!

So I’ll be busy navigating this bundle of seasonal head screw treats sans the one person that I’d be prepared to share all this with. Again, not because I am without lots of people I could confide in and rely on, but because my shame, fear and confusion over these feelings renders me unable to do so.

And how do I feel about it? Don’t ask me, I’ve told you feelings confuse the hell out of me! I’m gutted, I think that’s it. And I could be angry but I’m not.

Because here is another twist in the tale. I’m glad for my therapist that he is taking time out and doing what he needs to look after himself and those he loves because he is amongst those who faces a Christmas without some of his important people. His family has lost too many people this year. He will be navigating that very messy part of loss and grief and dealing with another ‘first’ without his Dad and I know first hand how painful that one is.

When it comes to other people I find care and compassion in a way that I never make available for myself. Boundaries be damned, I’m allowed to care. And I know that, come Christmas day; with the presents, the tree and the never ending turkey, I’ll find it tough and I’ll miss my dad and the innocent joyful Christmases before the tree became the backdrop to the worst event of my life, and I’ll think of my therapist, of his loss and remind myself of all I’ve gained in the last 21 or so months (thanks, in no small part, to his herculean therapeutic acts) and hope that 2020, in its balanced neatness, is the year that the gremlin takes his extended break from my life.

So he'll need 19 days off to build his strength because we’ve got plenty to cover when he's back in that office!