 It seems so many of my articles are written from my perspective as a professional and therapist. However, I would like to add a letter written to my therapist long years ago that expresses how it was for me as client. I do not wish to forget how it feels to sit in session. To face the Professional, the Therapist and hope against hope I have found someone who can HELP. Perhaps if we, as therapists, remember more often how it feels to be the client, we will realize there really is no difference between ourselves and the one who comes to us in need. LETTER: You asked me where I am in my trust issues with you? I answered that I do not know. Trust, testing without criteria - unsure. So I will put the scatterings that come to mind on paper avoiding words empty as bluejay's chatter. Hoping our minds will meet half way across the bridge whose ends are built in different atavistic origins - crossing the uncrossable for most. You say my a priori commitment to engage our work as though I trust you, even if I don't, should have gathered proof that trust is merited. I counter with the query that perhaps our definitions of trust are not the same. So now I will allow my musings missile-launched from thought pad, to soar free. PLEASE LISTEN CAREFULLY because my cry is muted in paper-thin fragility wrapped only in Survival's armor. You asked if my criteria is keeping confidence? It is FAR MORE than this. I do not know if you will understand how it is with me. This process of regression in my early levels of fixation finds adult expression overwhelming to my infant. Syllables of fear informing words. Who will hold the cradle still - allow the psyche to BE undifferentiated. Unscorned in its emergence. Have you patience while it feels its way for as long as it may take ? Do you understand I teeter back and forth between tentative trust and fear of being left floundering out of depths unable to feel beneath my feet sands of a different shore? I have not learned to trust new hands with all my vulnerability. I see you only in professional setting and this is not our personal way of living. I have not seen you in the normal ebb and flow of Life, known all your weakness and vulnerability that are not shared in sessions. (nor should be. I am not looking for this). Professionalism is safe cloak around our humaness. But can I trust you to realize I am reacting , speaking from my infant child? I CANNOT think in adult terms cognizant of theory, concept, premises and processes. I am responding solely from my child defenses looking always with suspicion, distrustful of each motive, reading every nuance, and wary always lest I get hurt again. Do you see my terror NOT of rage but facing once again the unbelonging loneness of an orphan's woe ? Can I trust you to remember always when I answer stupidly that you are not dealing with intelligence, but with my wounded child who crawled inside herself when there was nowhere else to go? Trust you to see my fighting little girl grasping at the Hope that one day she'd be big enough to be grownup and so, crawl OUT? My small child will not trust you for she has not found one yet who has not sheared off layers from her tender heart with scathing insults, mocking and despising who she is, contemptuous of her race, her body and her mind. So I really wonder if you will ACCEPT for as long as it may take , and understand wings quivering flight nano second away Are you fully conscious when I am no longer looking at you with a student's curiosity, adult maturity, but from child eyes watchful in my wariness of strangers who have trapped me in so many ways, so many times - steel jaws clamped to maim, or crushing out life's blood? Promises transparent as dragonfly wings - broken . Casting distance as a safety net protecting once again from pain exquisite in the tearing of re-opened scars, heart-hidden. Can you, my helper, track my baby steps without expectation of adult intelligence so I can grasp once more the child I lost so long ago ? As I grapple with the newness of the old, the oldness of the new - experiences - kaleidescope of colored moods - shifting. Can I trust you to understand my strong distaste, repulsion of emotional exhibition of my pain? To know it is not resistance to re-feeling but innate abhorrance found in all my race - trust you not to force expression of what my native culture does not do. It is our way. You ask me, " I wonder where you are in terms of your trust issues with me?". I answer - I don't know. I honestly don't know. I only know I am committed to go thru' whate'er it takes to integrate the past with now. The child within has yet to learn to trust - trust you to be completely honest, without pretense, willing to admit mistakes along the way,nothing couched in half-truths - and know I am the same. These are the vicissitudes of all my trust riding a roller coaster of attempts to guard against my vulnerability to hurt and challenges to risk for furtherance of growth. Can I trust you to understand I have set my grounded altogetherness aside so now it is my broken child who sits across from you? Wild as the forest creatures, deer and fawn, rabbits, fox and birds with whom she grew - and knew. Do not reach for them, make claims, move suddenly, or they will flee. Sit very still in time and patience. let them run free, fly free- and slowly they will draw near, feel safe - this she did and so they learned to trust. Please LISTEN CAREFULLY. I am trusting you in giving you my infant cry muted in paper-thin fragility wrapped only in Survival's armor - a wee girl's small defenses forged in the will to live. Can I trust you ? I will have trusted if I give you this to read. I hope you hear the cry within the cry. ************************* Goessoftly Retired Therapist www.goesoftlyishere.com (permission for reprints is required)     | LISTENING | RETRAUMATIZATION | PSYCHOBABBLE 1 | PSYCHOBABBLE 2A | PSYCHOBABBLE 2B | Did You Ever Push MY BUTTONS ! ! | Balance | THE INVISIBLE ONES | WEEDS | RECOGNIZING DISTRESS | COMMUNICATION | INTERVIEW (The lighter side) | INNOCUOUS INTERVIEW ? | The THERAPIST as RISK TAKER | TAINTED | EXPLOITATION | How do we handle Challenge? | CAN I TRUST YOU? | Me According to ME | | THE HEALING PROCESS | DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER | POETRY | Biographical Entries | THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE | STORIES FOR LITTLES (Pigmus and friends) | SEEDLING THOUGHTS TO WATER | | Return Home | Great Links | Sign/View Guestbook | |
||