meow

I'm Sae (she/her), I'm in my early 30s and living in the Netherlands. I'm mostly sharing about trauma/mental health stuffs. I regularly write about A, who has been my therapist since september 2020. She's pretty awesome. I also mention HT, who has been my haptotherapist since early 2019. In [this post] I explained the basics of what haptotherapy is.

I use this blog to write about my personal experiences with therapy and life, and to reblog things I like or relate to. I also like interacting with my followers and answering asks.

Basics & boundaries

I am an adult in my thirties; I do not feel comfortable following people under 18.

Asks are always welcome (though I may take time to reply), but please remember I’m not a professional. I can however give more general advice and/or speak from experience.

So last night I spiralled a tiny bit maybe about A never really loving me. I also made/finished this (quote based on this):

I talked "around things" for a long time with A, but she really tried to help me loop back to what we talked about on monday. I told her I'm scared because talking more about all this and what it means to me and what it triggers, I'm scared she'll eventually reach the point where she'll feel the need to repeat boundaries even though I'm well aware of boundaries and then it'll hurt and I'll lose all that is important to me.

She went down a big ass metaphor (as she often does) about how our relationship is soup. I still don't fully get it, tbh, but I think the point she was trying to make is that the soup isn't suddenly gone. We keep adding things to the soup and often that makes it better, and if it doesn't we'll just work together to make it taste good again (lol @ A's brain).

I told her I'm scared to really feel this (still not specifying what "this" is), because it's like she's helping me with so many things, but once I'm able to feel that and internalize it, I will no longer need it and she will leave me. So then I'd rather remain in the "play pretend" phase that co-exists with "it's all fake / she never really cares" if that means I won't have to lose her.

She kinda got that, but not fully. She asked me if it would help if we would decide, together, to only end therapy when we both agree with it. That was honestly really nice to hear (and means a lot) but is not really what this is about.

So I sighed and said: maybe I have to say what this is about. And she replied: yes... maybe that would help... - and she added we had 5 minutes left, not to cut me short, but to help me decide if now was the right moment to share this. I tried really hard to find the courage to share it because, as I told her, while I think sharing this in person might be more powerful, I don't know if I'd have the courage to share it in person and it would also feel bad to have to wait til monday.

And then the connection crashed out.

After a few minutes we managed to restart the call but I was grumpy and upset. She said we had two minutes left and asked if I still wanted to share it. I said it was gone now and I was just sad that I got so close and then it got ruined. She asked if it would help if we would take an extra five minutes, which made me cry more, and I said it would help.

Eventually I managed to say, "if I keep you just a bit unreal, if I never look at you to see if you're really there, I can keep pretending like maybe you secretly love me a little bit".

She hummed quietly for a bit, then asked me - "what does it mean, Sae, to secretly love a little bit?". I told her, "that it's real, that I matter". She asked me if that could exist within the borders of our relationship. I told her I don't think so, because I'm not a real person that truly matters to her.

As I cried hot hot tears, she said, "But you are. And at the same time that's what's so terrifying, so maybe this is not for now, but you are real for me, and do you dare to face that? That you have been walking along with me for these years as well, and that you also start to mean something to me, that I also attach to you as you attach to me? Can that exist within our borders without you running away? That's the puzzle I think, the puzzle we can pick back up on monday"

She asked me if there was anything else for now. I asked her if she thought I was dirty or bad. She said no, she thinks it makes sense, and she understands that it's both something I'd want and something that burdens me a lot.

I said a little bit about how I want it so much but I can't, because as soon as we talk about that so many little girls react and then I become bad. I didn't have any power left to explain this better, but it's related to mdsa stuff and I think A got that, because she replied that it makes so much sense, how many reflexes there are from how dangerous it must have been.

She wants to keep doing this with me. I guess. Can't wrap my head around it. I feel disgusting/disgusted with the internal responses, and the way my body starts lowkey flipping out (little trauma spasms?) as soon as we talk about this, and the way I get certain flashback-sensations (though like... at 5% strength so very easy to brush aside because hey I am probably making it all up!!! sigh).

Especially becos most of us are too chicken to have those conversations hahaha

I don't want to know more of her because what if I learn something that'll break the magic of pretending that I finally found someone to love me. I know it's not real. I know she gets paid to see me. I know she is genuine and I know love is easy to her, but I'm not delusional, I know I'm a patient. I know we have something after seeing each other so regularly for so long, but I also know it's not love.

I just want to keep pretending. I just want to keep pretending that she loves me. I need to have this experience of feeling like someone can see so much of me and love me. like someone can listen to all those little girls and truly hear them and care for them and love them. I need to keep pretending. I need to not lose this magic because I have to admit I'll never get any of what we missed out on and this is the only thing we'll ever get. I'm not willing to lose this play pretend.

I can't look at her because what if I look at her and I lose everything.

I think so! She was off of work last week and on monday we had a very meta conversation about our relationship, how it developed over the years. We really talked in depth about the period after her partner had a pretty serious accident and had to have multiple surgeries over the course of ?a year? - long time followers may vaguely remember this. It was really rough and it was very beautiful/special to be able to look back on that with A now. She was very open & honest about how that played into how she was towards me then - and how that may have continued to have an effect between us.

Some things she said were not easy to take in, but because she was so honest herself it was manageable to talk about it. It has left me feeling very raw and confused. Not necessarily in a bad way, I'm just feeling a bit (okay: very) weird about it. I'm both relieved and anxious to have an online session tomorrow. I hope we can talk about it a bit more.

I dunno, there's probably so much more to say about this, but I'm really exhausted so I'm gonna leave it at this (also it all feels very uninteresting for people to read so I feel self conscious about that). But it means a lot that you were thinking of me & sent this ask, thank you!!

And then my mother just very flatly tells him, "No, of course not, I've been saying, something is deeply wrong with Sae, there's nothing for us to do at this point".

My dad just nods and says something along the lines of, "Hmm, yes, okay" - and then he walks to the garage to do whatever the fuck he's been doing there for the last two decades.

And then that's that. That's how easy it is to erase me.

On repeat, on repeat, on repeat. And with A on vacation, it becomes increasingly harder to resist the doubts and the denial. It's probable nothing ever happened. I stare at childhood photos realizing it's straight up impossible that that woman put her fingers inside of that child. I probably made it all up anyway.

next week the dude is celebrating his 50th bday and they invited me bc their attempt at "not choosing sides" I think mostly means "we invite Sae (and not parents/sister) to all bdays and otherwise we don't see/talk to Sae".

but I asked him if he has any bday wishes and he replied "a book that you read that you think I should read!" and just. how fucking funny would it be to disclose the mdsa to them by giving a book in that range lmao. not doing that, obviously. but how funny would it be. how funny. (not funny but also very funny is the answer to how funny it would be)

anyway. I think I may give him Piranesi!! he's a puzzle dude who loves history and stuff. think he will either hate it or love it but considering it's one of my 5-star books... sounds like a plan. but maybe I who have never known men is also a very good option...