A tap dance

Tags

Avoidance, Denial, Meh, Permaculture, Repressed memo, Say his name damnit, Service, Therapy, Trauma symptoms, Yoga teacher

So at the end of our last session, you weren’t doing very well, prompts H (my therapist) in our appointment last week.

That’s right. I wasn’t… in a very good place at all…

It begins, accidentally sort of… on purpose sub-consciously… tapitty strike tap tap tap tap… oh but surely you want to hear about the latest with my family, my stressful job, my niece, what else is going on, what I’ve been writing on my blog… tic tac tap tap step ball change…

So how long do you think you can avoid talking about it? H gently questions me as we reach the half-way mark for the session.

Ah, oh… (friggin’ tears, just fuck right off!) I… look I know I need to face up to that stuff but really… I don’t know what to say about it right now. I still can’t say his name out loud. And I know it’s stupid! But it hurts worse than anything else I can think of, for some reason…

[Just thinking about that topic makes me feel like I’m dying. Even when I know I’m not.]

H changes tack. Okay, perhaps it’s not that important to do that right now, or ever… I’m not sure…

Yeah, well me neither.

H tries to pull me in closer; I desperately back away at speed.

We start talking about other things… and in a further attempt to avoid – I mention my annoyance with the length of time all this is taking.

This is the first time H admits that perhaps what I’m going through is somewhat more elongated than normal trauma recovery. The longer the symptoms are around, the harder it can be to shift them. But you can, and you are making progress.

Ah. So if I’d dealt with things properly in the first place…

No, don’t go there. It’s not about fault. It’s where you’re at. That’s all… you did what you could.

[Side note to Self: if I ever come across anyone else who’s been through trauma – insist they go get some help straight up. No matter what. Coz this royally blows…]

Uh huh. Well, I’m so over it.

So instead I mention how the anxiety and panic attacks seem to have increased a lot since this whole repressed memory thing. The rollercoaster of my emotional highs and lows right now (I used to be so even-tempered) is particularly unstable. Now much more so than before.

I even spill a little bit… about my general thoughts on not particularly caring if I was annihilated any time soon. I mean, I’m not really a part of anyone’s life exactly… just kind of an add-on. Y’know. Its all one great big dirty pile of… meh.

And… how I watch and witness these insane feelings and thoughts of negativity, completely neutrally (in regards to myself), insecurities running wild and free. I witness, and I do everything in my power not to dive in, but they’re there, all the same. Non-stop.

It takes very little to kick it all off and then… it’s a hike back to base camp.

Tip tap kick spin tap tap tap…

H writes alot today.

I know its devious. I feel a quiet satisfaction that we’re not talking about the other thing. It’s the first time I’ve consciously avoided talking about anything with H. I’m just not ready. And I hate that.

But somehow, perhaps because I’m letting some of the other less worrying negativity out of the bag… we get around to talking about what I actually want to do with myself.

If I’m not, y’know, gonna end up under a truck any time soon.

The words flow out of my mouth faster than I can think.

I wanna become a yoga teacher and a permaculturist. And I wanna… help under-privileged kids somehow. I want to help them learn more of the world than they might do otherwise, open more possibilities… But, I feel like I’ve got a long way to go before I can get there.

So is H my therapist or my life coach? Suddenly she’s got me focusing on what I’d really like to do. Things that would really make life feel like it was worthwhile. In a word: service.

And I still got away with avoiding the friggin’ subject. For now. Phew!

But it was interesting turn of conversation, all the same…

Round of applause. Bow. Cue curtain.

~Svasti