Open Journal #31

full collection links 1- 10 . 11-20 . 21-30

Excited puppies and wet paint do not mix well. So my week has been spent moving from room to room and staying out the way of painters. Painters we had booked long ago before all this stuff happened. It has been a weird week of broken sleep and naps and writing and hiding away alone.

I had my first session with my therapist. I was so tense before as each day went by it got worse. The run up was dreadful. The day before I was freaking out at the idea of doing it with painters in the house, radio blaring, privacy. I eventually worked out that I was bothered by the fact that the therapist and I had clicked so easily and I felt so connected to him that if we went into this ‘therapy session’ and it felt different or weird I would be so devastated.

An hour before the session the painters cancelled for the day. I was suddenly given a peaceful quiet house. I mean a half painted house but I could live with that. I made sure I had some water, had been for a wee, and waited at my computer for the moment to arrive. I had this weird experience of my mind having a kind of rush of thoughts, a stream of panic mode fears. Quite intense and quite out of control. Most of them illogical and a bit off centre.

Fred (hospital boy) and I have spent time recently talking about why we struggle telling our therapists things. We have talked about it a lot. We know we were trained to keep the secret. Yet we know it is ok to speak about it now. In my case both my abusers are dead. My sexual abuser admitted it. Yet still we both feel this knot in our stomachs if we think about telling our therapist things. He says he gets angry before they even ask him things just because they might. I feel as If I am going to throw up. Especially if I think he might ask me to describe any of the sexual abuse in detail.

We don’t know if that is normal for survivors. We don’t know how to stop feeling like this.

The therapist was the same as he had always been. All fear and panic just melted away. I found him easy to talk to, admittedly we didn’t stray anywhere too scary, but it felt possible and that was better than I had ever thought it would be.

Ten minutes in and I couldn’t understand what my mind had been doing just before he arrived. Why the panic? Why the endless scenarios of what could go wrong or how I could mess it up? The various things I could say or do that would mean he would not want to help me.

I had no plan to go into detail about the in & outs or details of my therapy. I didn’t think it was for public consumption and a boy needs some privacy. The occasional theme or discussion might inspire a journal entry. I mean every and now and then I need to be able to say ‘… as I was saying to my therapist only yesterday … ‘ otherwise what a waste of money that was. Funny things I will obviously mention, because that’s just a waste of good material.

Then I realised it is an extension of my thought process and the kind of discussions we have here all the time anyway. I decided not to make any rules, let’s just see where it goes. By accident we strayed onto the subject of ownership and did I belong to my abuser. 

I find these kind of conversations interesting. So many things to do with abuse are multi-layered, it almost feels as if we hold differing views and feelings in a little cocktail of misunderstanding. None of it needs to make sense and all of it feels as if it applies depending on mood or the time of day.

I think there was a sense that I did belong to him. The fact that he taught me everything I know about sex. Taught me what to do, taught me how to improve my technique. Taught me to enjoy it, taught me what I liked. Taught me to be compliant and taught me to obey. Taught me to submit and taught me to respond.

I think there is a sense that I do still belong to him. If he was to walk into the room right now and tell me to undress, I can’t be sure I wouldn’t. It has been forty plus years since he did that. If I have sex I think of him because one of the things being done to me will have been done by him. 

He gave me to others as if I was a possession, handed me over to be played with and used and he told others I was available. We strayed into this conversation and the word ownership and slavery was used for the first time and it washed over me as I saw clearly what he was saying. 

I walked away from that session and kept thinking about the word ownership. What it meant to me, seeing it in all kinds of ways, seeing it applied to me. Not just the sexual abuse either, my father was no better. 

My childhood was about obedience and orders and if I stepped out of line I was beaten in the same way a slave would be. My voice never raised in anger, no disobedience, no stepping out of line, no thinking, no opinions.

I have no idea why we were discussing this, no idea where we are going with it. Not even sure there was a point. Maybe it was just one of those things that came up and we went with it as we were there anyway. Not done with it, keep circling around it. Picking it up, putting it down. 

I feel lost in the idea that I was owned and treated however they wanted and then I carried the marks of that for decades. They are dead and I don’t feel it has gone. 

I really don’t know how therapy works. I don’t know if I was supposed to do this, walk away with one word and worry it to death. Or if it is just one of those things that has hit me and I can’t leave it alone. Did I ignore all the other things I was supposed to be taking in? How do you know what to do? How to respond or react? It is a complete fucking mystery to me.

It is like being dropped into an evening at an Embassy of a foreign country and having no idea of the language and protocol and just muddling through as best you can. Then coming home and talking for hours about the amazing chandeliers and completely missing what the point of the evening was.

I am the opposite of an over-achiever, I just hope to get through things unnoticed and coping without bringing shame on my family.

I agonise about how to behave with a therapist … i pay him but he doesn’t work for me … we are friendly but he is not a friend … stiff and professional seems too awkward … what is this strange relationship?

One of the problems with this setup is that I genuinely want to hand myself over to him and trust he has a plan for me and knows what he is doing and where he is taking me. The problem with that is I have no idea where we are heading and how we are going to get there. Loss of control, the worst thing you can feel as a survivor. 

I have lost the feeling of panic which is good because that was exhausting and unpleasant. I am just not quite sure how I am supposed to be behaving.

I think I have decided a few things, I don’t want to be owned by anybody anymore. I am pretty sure I am done with that.

I think my body should belong to me. I think my sexual preferences should be mine however I learnt them.

I think I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I just hope he knows how to teach me how to do that.

because I don’t know how