Open Journal #32.1
This could be Rotterdam or anywhere
but it is actually Rotterdam
the first time i have ever been here alone
no wife, friends or work colleagues
i was married just there across the street and we lived over the other side of that square
I have a thing about lying, i don’t like doing it, i feel really bad if i do it and i am sure i look guilty as sin if i ever do. As i approached passport control i suddenly thought what if they ask me why i am visiting Rotterdam, i don’t look anything like a business man. So i went with visiting friends, oh lovely he said where do they live? Oh i don’t know i said i’m staying in a hotel and they are picking me up. I showed him my hotel booking and my return flight (cheek i paid taxes here for years do i look like a migrant) …(i did not say)
The plane had landed in a snow blizzard, freezing cold and wind slapping your face. It looked like christmas but felt like a trip to the south pole. I exited the airport to discover that my phone wasn’t doing anything, no signal no wifi, zilch, nada.
I had no cash. I had no cash because my wife had assured me that as we now lived in a cashless society there was no need for me to take some cash. After ten minutes and a bit of fiddling my phone came to life. I managed to find a bus that would take me near my hotel. Tech is wonderful until tech stops and leaves you literally alone in the dark. No map, no cards, no access to information, no signal to call for help.
The hotel is buzzy and people are laughing. Every time i interact with anyone they ask me why i am here. I have never been a tourist here before it is really weird and on some level i object. I stick with the visiting friends story. Well it’s plausible and i don’t think i will be found out.
so why am i here?
in case you missed it i have come all this way to meet face to face with my therapist. Yes i am aware i could have gone to one in my own town and made it a lot easier for myself. Why play it safe?
At some point today a moderator on the survivor site commented that i should become a therapist, and i find it ironic that i started my time here vehemently against the idea of getting a therapist, adamant that it would never happen and while i was sat in the airport waiting for my flight to go and meet my therapist it is suggested i become one. Three months for the hunted to become the hunter. I am aware the analogy doesn’t really work but it amused me.
My instant reaction was to say ‘never gonna happen’ …not making that mistake twice … i can’t see it myself. I sit in chat and watch some of you support and help people and i am in awe at your patience and care, your ability to walk with people and help them face such dreadful things. I lack the requisite skills and at my age i have no real inclination to acquire them. It’s not like God calling you to be a monk or a nun, i don’t think it could be thought of as a vocation.
I start tomorrow
tomorrow is another day
what will be will be
Open Journal #32.2
i am just going to post a series of little journals as we go along. With a slight time delay to allow me time to write and ponder. i will add them to the main collection later … no time for admin things to do. Otherwise i will forget stuff. This feels very much like in the moment stuff. I slept for five hours deeply and no dreams, maybe i am just in the wrong country. But maybe i shouldn’t upend my life on the basis of one nights sleep.
My memory of Holland is of the strongest coffee imaginable and i am disappointed to find only sachets of instant coffee in my room. i pass the time chatting to some of you then showering and head downstairs in search of coffee.
I am oddly calm this morning, nervous but calm. A kind of show about to start nervous energy kind of feeling. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
I just slipped into a chat and it helped to have a little chat about how i was feeling and it focused me on the fact that the most important thing is that clearly i trust him. I think we are half way there, if you trust then the rest can follow. If there is trust then you can step forward.
I am sticking to my plan, hand myself over to him, trust he knows what he is doing, answer everything honestly no matter how uncomfortable it makes me feel. Just truth. No sidestepping and no masks. The time for smoke and mirrors is over.
We have talked together for about five hours in total so far. I have taken a few difficult things to him and he has led me through them and proved he knows what he is doing. I am better for knowing and trusting him. Why would i not want more of that? I am starting to feel hope.
Just going to get my coat and walk across town to his office. It is freezing and raining/snowing so it is gonna be a soggy walk.
I am going in
Open Journal 32.3
The first day
I walked across town and was swamped with memories of living here, old friends and nostalgia is not a bad way to start a day.
I got there early because being late is something i can’t begin to comprehend and found a cafe that served great coffee and was so warm and gezellig which is dutch for cosy/snug but really has no direct translation.
We met and we chatted and it was fine.
It was better than fine it was as good as it could possibly be. We had already built a good rapport and the longer we talked the more comfortable i felt.
We started working together and it got less comfortable, but even though at times it has felt harrowing and difficult i always felt he was in control and knew what he was doing. The trust I had in him very quickly grew.
In breaks i questioned him about what we were doing and why we were doing certain things. At one point he asked me if i was trying to work out what he was doing because i still didn’t trust him. I admitted that not only had i grown to trust him very quickly it was now off the scale. As we had worked through the morning i was relaxing and was starting to feel eager about what was happening.
It is impossible to talk about details, it is so specific to me, it is unique in the sense that the content only applies to me. Particular people, in a certain time and place, behaving in a certain way and how i felt about that and the impact on my life. The ways i have dealt with it and coped with it and what i can do to improve that.
I mean that’s the basics, intense, and work that normally takes weeks all in one very full day, and yes exhausted actually and i need a shower and some food and maybe even some sleep.
We go again tomorrow. Today was about my father and the physical abuse and tomorrow is all about the sexual abuse. I have considered things i would never have thought about. I have no idea if it has gone well, i don’t even know if we did the stuff we were supposed to or if was a bit of a slow client and could do better. I didn’t ask and i am not sure he would have told me if i had asked.
Things changed, sometimes in the moment it was clear that they would never be the same again and even felt so different i was convinced he had a wand somewhere and was using actual spells. Other things felt like building blocks that were going to serve me well in the weeks ahead.
I am feeling so positive about it that i am wishing i had booked him for the whole week.
There were moments today that i will never forget for the rest of my life they were that profound.
I keep asking myself why i didn’t do this years ago, i asked my wife the same question and she pointed out that i wasn’t ready and more importantly my therapist probably wasn’t born then.
nice!
Open Journal #32.4
i woke up feeling peaceful, no dreams. This won’t last but it felt good to just experience a calm start. I went to find coffee and you need your keycard to operate the elevator. As i used it i noticed it has the slogan on it ‘It’s time to let me go’ … the ‘let me go’ is in red … a profound and a very ‘on message’ start to the day.
I went outside to vape and a homeless man started talking to me … he wanted money … i explained that i had none on me as everything was on my phone and i wasn’t carrying cash … i sat with him and let him talk … eventually he wandered off and i have never felt so white and middle class and an elite prick … a cashless society feels as if it is gonna get heartless and bleak for some if we are not careful
yesterday i evoked a digital silence and switched all devices off for the whole day, my phone had a compete fit when i switched it back on. It seemed very angry at being silenced. I am gonna do the same again today, it created a bubble of serenity and shut out the world which i think i need to do.
I feel calm and positive for the day ahead, coupled with flickers of panic. He already told me that we are gonna deal with the sexual abuse today. deal with. like it is that simple. He exudes this confidence that i stare at blankly trying to grasp and go along with but it slips through my fingers and makes me feel a little lost. I just keep reverting to the mantra that he is in charge and i will go where he leads.
harsh truth … i am standing in a place of honesty of my own making, and i believe one of the main reasons for writing this journal and speaking of these things, is that we all have a shared experience of painful things to deal with. The more we talk about them and reach a collective understanding or our trauma the less power it has over us. Either that or i am delusional and you are all reading this in abject horror, well that’s your prerogative and i still defend my right to blither on regardless.
my harsh truth yesterday evening was being alone in a hotel and being swamped by a mix of feelings and intrusive thoughts. I wanted to go and find weed and smoke myself into oblivion and feel nothing and everything. I wanted to suck the cock of a stranger and feel some intimate connection for a few moments. I was both horrified and fixated and couldn’t shake it off. I didn’t do either of those things. I negotiated myself down to getting a pack of cigarettes and smoked three in a row and disgusted myself, i haven’t smoked in years. Then I locked myself in my hotel room and tried to understand what the fuck i was thinking.
I slept and woke up and went into chat and told the truth like a confessional for this lost survivor who can make no sense of the myriad feelings that keep overwhelming me. They talked to me and told me things i needed to hear and centred me. I think it is fear and panic for the day that lies
ahead. I have no idea how to speak of these things and my only hope is that he knows how to circumnavigate that and get me to a place where i can face the things i need to.
I am depending on coffee, my desire to see this through, and a man who seems to know what he is doing
the theme of today is … It’s Time To Let Me Go
Open Journal #32.5
i arrived early because he told me to go get a coffee and have a chat before we started, as if we hadn’t done enough talking. The strange thing is we are enjoying each others company and we make each other laugh a lot.
I found today harder and a lot more sticking points, we agreed that for various reasons i had three main abusers and an amount of sundry ones and very definitely without question had been sexually, physically and emotionally abused. Also quite a lot of abuse. So it was good to affirm that and be absolutely sure of just how dreadful it was. He assured me that i wasn’t quite the worst he had seen, and then listed the kind of things i don’t have included in the list and i agreed it could have been a lot worse.
It feels as if i have learnt many things and then forgotten them again, and then a few hours later something clicks and it makes more sense. We both agreed we should have done the full week, we could have got even more done.
I am currently sat in Rotterdam airport waiting for my flight home and reflecting as to whether it was worth it and did it do what i hoped it would do.
I think it was worth it and i am glad i did it. I think it did what i hoped it would, but there is no way of knowing for sure until some time has passed. I do know that the real work starts now, i have to build on what i have learnt and not fall back into bad habits and keep moving forward.
I might need to print some things on mouse mats and t-shirts to keep myself motivated.
I need some sleep
i need to hang out in chat
i need to re-enter the real world
i am sure i will have more to say … when don’t i ?
Open Journal #32.6
I want to share a thing. I think it is a good story.
I arrived home last night, grubby and tired from travelling. I slept deeply and wasn’t troubled with dreams, for the second night in a row.
Before i left we had a house guest move in for a few days because she was having some serious remodelling done to her house and needed to stay somewhere with running water. So this morning this lovely friend was using our study to do a little work and i fetched her a fresh coffee and we sat and chatted and she asked how it had all gone.
I’m not ready talk about any of it in great detail yet as there needs to be a bit of processing but i talked about it a little. Then she went to get something calling back over her shoulder ‘i forgot i have something for you’.
She returned and handed me a box, inside was a presentation case with a Mont Blanc pen. I was a little shocked and asked ‘what is this’ . She explained that writing was her work and many years ago she had treated herself to a set of Mont Blanc pens as they were the ultimate tools of her trade and that this rollerball version she had never got on with and she had noticed how i loved her pens and thought i should have this one.
I was stunned, to me they are one of those iconic design items that i never thought i would own, they are expensive and beautiful and completely too much. I was overcome with emotion that someone would be so kind and i said i couldn’t accept it. Inside my head was this scrambled feeling that i did not deserve such a beautiful present and i was not worthy of owning such a thing.
She sat and told me how much she valued me as a friend and how kind we had been to her over the years and that it was a pleasure to give it to me and please accept it. I cried.
I own a beautiful Mont Blanc pen.