Resolutions and Ultimatums

It’s been a while since I put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard) and I think that says a lot about where my head has been.

A month past Christmas and close to 3 weeks since the return to therapy after the festive break and it’s fair to see that those 3 weeks have proved more testing than the 3-week break did.

But for why? Truth be told (heard in deep Welsh ‘Nessa’ accent please) I am probably now able to see a few different threads joining forces to create the perfect storm of headfuckness.

The new year itself.

Along with the rest of the Gregorian calendar following world, I am compelled to undertake some kind of stock take as the bells chime midnight, appraise what is to be accomplished this year and what, unlikely to keep, resolutions I’m to create.

And for me this throws up 2 very particular quandaries. The first is that I reflect on the (perceived) many flaws I must address – like half the adult population I quickly rattle off “must lose weight” “must get fit” “must get off my phone” “must spend less on clothes” and so on. But my lovely but slightly broken head also appends the standard list with “must stop being a fuckwit”, “must grow up and be a proper, stand on own 2 feet adult”. I am then able to use the ‘evidence’ of my flaws to beat myself up and replay the long ‘bad person” list on repeat (with a raised volume) until I feel about as bad about myself as it’s possible to. The other quandary here is about the ‘year ahead’. Whilst, even those who recognize the opportunity for improvement, might realise there is work to do this year instead I look at 365 days as if I were doing hard labour. Blind to the good things in my life; the love, the people, the planned holidays even, and I see a stretch of time which is unsurmountable. I’m not good with the concept of future – even short term.

Plans.

A few days into the new year I was back to work and straight into a scheduled 2-day planning session. Oh goody, new year’s business resolutions too!

And this was a toughie. Because I care deeply about the business I’ve co-created. I care about doing things right, being fair, making a difference and, maybe most importantly, providing jobs and a great place to work for our brilliant team. And when you have a business and you want it to work you need to have plans of the short medium- and long-term variety. Here the issue of the future presents itself again. And this time I’m there with someone else. I cannot choose to bow out or ignore the requirement. So, plan we did. Including within it of course were financial targets, requirements for revenue in order to grow the business and reward the aforementioned brilliant team appropriately. What became apparent through this process was that an impact of my tricky couple of years has been felt. I haven’t been fully engaged; I haven’t been what we need me to be.

And so, my resolution crystalised. Things cannot go on as they are.

I decided that I had 2 choices (nice clear no middle ground)

a) I pull my socks up. Lock up these pesky feelings and get the grown-up business leader and adult back out. Abandon therapy, use old coping mechanisms, hope they don’t kill me.

or

b) Stop the ride now and get off. Get out the previously crafted plans for departure, ensure everything is in good shape here and, well, yep.

I know, drama alert! Option a felt fairly unbearable and so I amended it to a maximum of 5 years before I would invoke option b.

And so, I started the flitting between the options.

In terms of therapy I’ve struggled between the intense desire to tell my therapist all that was going on and the gremlin’s voice telling me that neither plan included this infiltrator! One thing was for sure I was wasting his time and whatever plan I had it did not include allowing me to keep wasting his time – the feelings stuff was over.

But I’m grateful for the part of myself that has grown in the last 2 years. It’s most definitely still embryonic, can’t walk let alone run away from the gremlin but it kept me going back into that therapy room an kept me trying to reach out and say what was going on.

And it’s taken 3 weeks of acting out, hiding, legging it out of the room mid-session and e-mails where I flitted between asking for reassurance that he was still there and then saying I need a therapy break before I managed to share this truth.

Alongside my option ponderances the last 3 weeks have provided additional challenges. A minor op for my daughter (nothing significant but enough to through spanners in the work) and an anniversary for my therapist that I knew would be tough for him and wanted to acknowledge but stay on the right side of boundaries about.

On Tuesday though we broke through the games. I said “don’t worry if I go off the radar” In spite of, what must have been a temptation on his part to sigh and let me get on with the dramatics on my own time, my therapist waded in and put the cards on the table. He knew what I was up to and I’d managed to give just enough away for him to jump in and make me think properly. Through his perfect blend of compassion and firm words I saw just enough lunacy in my thinking and fessed up.

What I got by return was all the reassurance I could need that I was supported and also that there was an option c.

It’s taken a couple more days for the grounding to come, another session I could barely get to, a spoonful of bravery from me to get there and stay there. And those in combination with his ability to see me and offer me what I needed (today another 20 minutes just to be there safely with him).

Option c is not a couple of lines long and it’s every shade of grey (and no, not the Christian Grey type). I actually don’t know quite what it is myself but it consists of me here, me being the grown up person I need (and actually want) to be, me asking for support when I need it and, most likely, a heap more patience, mind reading and seeing me when I want to hide, from the person that’s shown me this option in the first place.