Therapy - Part 2

Breakup, icebergs, and trouble

If you haven’t read Part 1, start there. This is what happened next.

We left off at the end of last year. I’d taken the fateful decision to work with Gavin.

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Breakup

I had some time to wait.

A trip to Sri Lanka, over New Years, gave me space to ponder what was ahead. I knew big changes were coming. I felt uneasy.

By mid-January I was back. A weekly session agreed. And we begun.

The first session passed without major incident.

We discussed the rather safe topic of my dyslexia. Gavin accused me of mismanaging my neurodiversity.

Not something I’d been accused of before but he had a point. I resolved to go away and research the topic further (more on that another time). We parted ways.

Maybe this won’t be so challenging after all I thought to myself as I strolled away.

How wrong I was.

By session two things got spicy.

Gone was the tame dyslexia chat. The focus turned to my romantic relationship.

I won’t dwell on the details here, it’s not only my story to tell, but sessions two to four were deeply uncomfortable. I left each week reeling. Feeling sick to my stomach.

Four sessions was all it took.

I ended the relationship.

I arrived to session five shell shocked. Afraid of what might be uncovered next.

It’s then the real work began.

Icebergs

Gavin described my various dynamics as icebergs.

Each one a sign of a deeper issue. Apparently we weren’t going to be short of material.

Connecting them all was, apparently, a complete lack of self-care. Why do you end up in such shit situations? He asked me.

Now, this was rather confronting. I had myself down as a self-care expert. In the last five years I’d learnt every trick in the book to keep myself calm and positive through life’s trials.

But therein lies the problem.

I’ll be fine no matter what; it’s a powerful attitude. One that’s given me remarkable resilience.

But it’s also meant putting everything and everyone before myself.

At the cost, in recent years, of my health, personal finances, and, at the end of last year, even my confidence. All from the destructive situations I’d placed myself in.

What intrigued Gavin is Why? Where had this come from? The conversation turned to childhood.

And it all came out.

Trouble

The times as a young boy I’d shown emotion.

Crying at school.

The embarrassment.

The vowing to lock it away.

To not show that vulnerability again.

The steeling myself to be unflappable.

A master of emotional suppression.

All is well becoming a mantra; a way of life.

And then the trouble starting.

The problem with emotional suppression is that emotion needs to go somewhere. And locking it away has consequences.

The day after my 15th birthday, at boarding school, I drank half a bottle of whiskey and half a bottle of wine.

Next thing I knew I woke up in the local hospital. My Dad was there to take me home.

This set the tone for the next decade.

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That’s all for today. The public unpacking of my baggage will resume in Part 3. Coming soon…

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What I’ve Been Reading 📚

Our Oaken Bones by Merlin Hanbury-Tenison

A beautiful book. The story of Merlin, and his wife Lizzie, healing from PTSD and burnout, amongst other things, in the temperate rainforests of Cornwall. There might just be an Unplugged cabin appearing there soon…

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A Final Thought 💡

"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."

— Sigmund Freud