This blog post may contain content that triggers, and does mention trauma, and adverse childhood experiences.
“Should we do it today?”
My brain said no, and my mouth quickly followed, “Not today.”
So we sat for a mere moment, my therapist assuring me we’d visit it another time. Before we could move on, I was taking off my shoes and planting my bare feet into the carpet. In an almost out of body experience, I looked at my therapist and said, “Actually, let’s do it.”
I didn’t expect therapy to be like this.
Late one night I found myself in a local Facebook group for parents of additional needs kids, typing out a post asking for help. The request seemed simple: “Does anyone know a really good psychologist for parents?”
Finding the right psychologist is as difficult as finding the right life partner. Sometimes you find the right one first go, and it’s magic… and sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs in the process. I found the right one almost two decades and a lifetime ago when I lived in Sydney, and she was the measuring stick for all other therapists moving forward.
I met with a quiet psychologist who spoke in broken English. She handed me paper after paper with lists to write, goals to set, and kept the conversation on the surface. I never saw her again.
I then found a strong female psychologist who seemed promising, but then pulled out a whiteboard marker and with that one move, I was out. It seems I have an aversion to therapy that involves stationery.
To be honest, it’s not the stationery. I love stationery. It’s the overwhelm. Goal setting and planning and list writing is just too much for my already completely overwhelmed brain. It wasn’t them, it was me.
And then I found myself in an old office, filled with natural light. A simple couch on one side, and chair in front of it. There was no stationery to be seen. We sat down, facing each other, and we talked. She asked what I didn’t want from my sessions {the answer: stationery}, and what I did want {the simple answer: to parent better}, and we got started.
A year on, I was sitting there, bare foot, my feet planted into the carpet, ready.
I closed my eyes, and I was in the room; Adult me, and 4 year old me, in the room where it all happened back when. My eyes stayed closed for the better part of an hour. Vivid imagery played like a movie in my mind. I shared what I was seeing, slowly and pensively, allowing space for it unfold.
Lead gently by my therapist, but mostly by my own memory and intuition, we changed the narrative. We stood over him, and instead of being the victim, as I was 38 years ago, we stopped it. We yelled. We let all our anger out.
“Would you like me to say something to him too?” my therapist asked.
And she did. She let rip. With strength, and grace, and ferocity, she swooped in, in ways I’d only dreamed of back then, and even now.
He lay there {in that movie in my mind}, the small, nothingness of a human. No fight. Just weakness.
We walked out, and away.
The moments that were followed were beautiful, light, and almost magical. The movie in my mind played on, as if I was creating new core memories. I held the hand of 4-year-old me, and we traveled through my our life. I found myself back in my own childhood house, where we sat on the couch of a quiet room, while my family laughed and played raucously in the next room.
Eventually we joined them, and this time I didn’t carry the burden of secrets I was told to keep, or a sense of shame or brokenness. I joined them with light and joy. I narrated the story as I saw it to my therapist, a grin across my face, as if it was the best movie I’d ever seen.
The scenes whizzed by. Moments of childhood relived, and retold, all the way into adulthood. A new life of light, without worry. The end scene was my family again, this time as adults, around a small table at my Mum’s house. My brother making us laugh, as he always does, the room filling with joyous laughter. My kids were at the table too. Back in the therapy room, I broke out in laughter too, as if I simply could not contain the joy any longer.
Eventually I returned to the room. I opened my eyes, and felt my bare feet again on the carpet.
I had so many questions; Like, how did that all just happen? Does this happen for other people? Is this what Gestalt Therapy is? Is this some kind of magic?
But I didn’t ask them. I sat in the magic {and months of hard work} and walked out lighter, and stronger.
Back when I first wrote that question in that Facebook group, I thought I’d find someone that would give me practical parenting advice to make me a better mum. Instead I learned that I’m already a good mum, I just need to unravel the trauma that was making me believe otherwise, and to unpack how what happened to me, was still happening for me.
I didn’t expect therapy to be like this, and even though I’m still a work in progress, it’s even better than I could have ever imagined.
