“I got you”

Three little words that would seem to be at the heart of what my new therapist stands for. They’re good words. Short and sweet and full of meaning.

I got you

I haven’t written anything about the world of therapy in several months now and that’s because writing about what has happened felt too painful and, by putting it in black and white, made it all too real when I wasn’t ready to face it. And also, because, when you’re hurting that badly, you can’t muster even the darkest of humour.

The truth is that I have stopped working with my counsellor of three years after a really painful and difficult experience. Difficult for us both I have no doubt. Anyone who has ended a very close and long standing therapeutic relationship will, no doubt, understand the pain and loss that comes with the end of such a relationship. It’s been like a bereavement, only this time I have to live with the knowledge that I could encounter the walking dead at the next school concert!

And I’m still not too clear exactly what happened to change it all so quickly but what I know was that the goalposts shifted. That my lovely (because I still believe that he is) therapist made a decision about contact outside of sessions that changed from ‘contact me as much as you need’ ‘you’re not too much’ and ‘I’m happy to hear from you’ to ‘you can email but I won’t reply but I still care’. I don’t know how he got here, how I didn’t see it coming, if I did something that I am still unaware of or what. But that happened over 2 sessions very quickly and I felt so abandoned and no longer remotely secure. I believe he made a decision from a very parental place and not a collaborative therapeutic one. We’d got into a funk it’s true. The boundaries were blurring and I know he carried anxiety about me way outside of what should have been the case as my counsellor. He cared, maybe too much. At least that is what I am saying here as dwelling on, or documenting other, less generous spirited options will break my heart that little bit more.

I quickly went from a place of increasing security, of safety and care to feeling wildly unanchored. We couldn’t continue, I couldn’t do the work with someone who could know me, understand my triggers and yet do that. I felt like there were no options for me, that I was indeed very broken but I was too much to handle and that, should I continue on the journey (sorry reader I try to avoid the “j” word but I’m at a low ebb so forgive me) to try and figure myself out, that I would have to do so alone.

It took me a matter of days to recognise this was not an option. However capable and functional I am in the rest of my world – as a professional, as a wife and mother and as a friend, when it comes to me I have not done all my growing up and I am not (yet) equipped to navigate the path ahead alone.

I toyed with the other option before me as I do on (sometimes too frequent) occasion and thought maybe this was the time to bow out. No longer would I have the added guilt of what that decision would mean to him, I could go through with the ‘accident’ plan and hope nobody would ever be any the wiser.

But I didn’t. Because really and honestly deep down I want to keep breathing, I want the good bits of my world, I want to find out who I am and I want the chance for my life to matter – to me. Plus, I treated myself to some buratta and I’d be cheating myself if I didn’t get to try it (note the dark humour trying to return).

And so there I was again, 3 years later, thinking how to find someone who would be safe for me, willing to work with me and who I could trust to empty the cesspit of my head with. And now I knew I also needed to be careful to find someone capable of dealing with me, who would not be overwhelmed by me, and who wouldn’t pull the rug from under the work and abandon me.

The list of requirements I wrote 3 years ago had grown.

Finding a therapist is really really hard. You search online much like as if you were about to buy car insurance. But, instead of the debate about the need for the courtesy car or benefits of free legal cover, you’re figuring out if this is someone you’d be ready to share the depth of your soul with, someone who you’re prepared to be a significant part of your world, who you’ll share the really difficult things with. It’s a truly odd thing to decide on the basis of a couple of paragraphs. It’s like ‘Married at First Sight' but darker and with a far less expensive frock!

You get a snippet of profile and a tiny window into their world and you take a big punt. I spent several long nights scrolling counselling directories, reading and rereading the words of potential candidates for the exciting, and newly available, position of ‘Continuous Improvement Lead for my brilliant but bonkers brain’.

This time one of the big things weighing on my mind was gender. I’d very consciously chosen to work with a man before. For one I find there is less waffle, more transparency with blokes (of a therapeutic or other disposition to be honest) and I had also known that with losses and traumas related to the men in my life it would probably be good for me to find trust in a man. But this time round I pondered hard that maybe this was one of the downfalls last time. Not that there has ever been any inkling of inappropriate feelings with my previous therapist – I’d dodged ‘erotic transference’ and had long since stopped even noticing the gender of the person sat opposite me week after week. But it lingered with me that maybe it was a part of the issue and so I filtered out all the men!

But I’ll be honest here, as a woman, and a woman in business who champions other women doing their thing, I was beyond underwhelmed and switched off by every profile I read. For 2 main reasons

1. The wishy washy flannelly nancy pansy language. I’m sure it’s there to feel gentle and caring but it felt weak and limp. I know I need someone robust, a person not full of jargon and someone who can be honest and frank with me. I would be no good with someone who wouldn’t call me on my bullshit and I just wasn’t sure any met that brief.

2. There was so much structure and boundary and ‘what they won’t do’ type content. Now I get boundaries are really important, a clear framework for working like this is crucial but I think maybe female counsellors are too worried about ‘getting it wrong’ and that can mean lack of flexibility and adaption. Both things I know I need.

So I gingerly removed the filter and a name appeared almost immediately. I read a profile devoid of bullshit, from someone who clearly lived in the real world, who used practical language and I felt an affinity. Also spotting his experience in bereavement work I knew he’d be ready for some of the can of worms I still needed to explore.

I tentatively completed the contact form, closed the browser and went back to the next video call (it’s 2021 after all!)

I didn’t have to wait long before I got a warm and friendly response, reassuring me around all the points in my enquiry and offering to set up an initial session to assess if we could work together. I agreed and, a couple of weeks later, raw from my previous counselling end I jumped in feet first.

Now I’ve long had a joke with my husband about the ‘second wives club’, believing that second wives get treated a lot better than those of us on attempt number 1. The husbands of female friends who have been married before are generally more emotionally intelligent, less controlling, more understanding and have learnt good lessons from whatever had led to the end of a previous relationship. Of course it’s a ridiculous generalization but it keeps him on his toes!

I think I’m going to have to acknowledge that the ‘second therapists club’ is not the place to be. When I began working with my previous therapist 3 years ago we started slowly and cautiously, I presented an easier version of myself, keeping some of the darker thoughts and experiences well under wraps. I provided banter and amusing anecdotes, working to ingratiate myself. I was, in the early days I suspect, more like a one woman show than a therapy client in need of emotional support. We were many months in before self harm was mentioned, a year in before I admitted to feeling suicidal, 18 months before I cried and 2 full years before all the basket of losses and past trauma lay on the table in front of us.

This time I’ve worked quickly through almost all of that in 6 weeks. I walked in wide open, wounded and hurting from the ending and with all my emotions raw and on the surface. And he’s stuck it out. He’s reassured me that everything I’ve laid bare is OK with him. He’s enabled me to avoid the ticking clock of wondering how long I’ve got before it has to end, he’s met me with compassion, he’s challenged me and he’s seen what I need and offered it readily.

He’s got me and it’s such a bloody relief.