Can You Find Me?

Do you care? We all desire to be known. As a trauma survivor, I flip between desperately wanting you to see me, really see me, and wishing I had the power of invisibility. What if you really knew me?

For the last several months I have been at odds with my therapist of eleven years. Other than God, she sees me and knows me more than anyone else. That knowledge makes this pain incredible. I believe that if she knows me, she would know the things she said could be extremely hurtful. She called it a calculated risk. Her calculation failed and the pain went so deep I could not find a way to excavate it and set it free. It came on top of another deep wounding on her part, which allowed this one a straight and unobstructed shot to my heart. The blood was dripping, now it forms a pool around every thought of returning to therapy.

I have worked hard to figure it all out, make it okay again, as I sloshed around with the festering wound. I did meditation. I talked to friends. I prayed. I read. Surrendering to my inefficacy, I sought help from another therapist. Finally, I had a remarkable vision which would serve to mend the damage like a mother’s quick stitches of her son’s trousers as he runs late to school. I anxiously returned to my main therapist to share this enlightened moment, and it went well. I followed up the next day with a thank you letter, for patience, for hearing me, for the apology I deserved. And she responded…with another thrust of the sword. Like the boy whose hastily mended jeans would soon burst open, my wound gushed with vigor until I lay dazed, confused, and in incredible pain.

It would take a week for me to even speak of the incident as I tried to get any traction on the slimly viscous fluid which continued to pump out of my body, draining all my energy and clarity. Unlike my quiet, non-confrontational “good girl” part, I found my voice and explained in detail what her words continued to do to me. She graciously listened and responded, ending with, I will wait to hear from you. I thanked her again for hearing me and explained that I didn’t know what to do with all the confusion and pain. I received an email full of psycho babble which ended with, I will wait to hear from you. The letter tasted bitter like the pith of a lemon which is followed by the sting of the juice when it reaches a forgotten canker sore. I waited a week and sent a text emoji which was answered with another. I am not a trained professional, and I didn’t know how to mend this again, the edges were too tattered to hold a stitch. I was trying to trust her knowledge, and hoped eventually she would reach out, after all she had “heard from me” three times.

After nearly two weeks, a YouTube entitled “Necessary Endings” came across my notifications. I took this as a sign, a message from God, and I immediately listened and agreed. This is probably a necessary ending. After eleven years of her seeing me as though I was naked before her, overcoming this will require grieving. We have bound up wounds together, painfully scraped old dead tissue, used surgical grafts as required, and applied endless antibiotics on stubborn infections which would long defy healing. I have incredible gratitude for her perseverance, treatment has made me stronger and more resilient, and I am finding my voice again.

This morning a message keeps looping in my mind, can you find me? At the heart center, this translates to, do you care? She told me she loves me (I won’t even get into how difficult that made my therapeutic life) so why can’t she find me?

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