“I think our work here might be done,” she said at the end of this week’s therapy session.
I felt as if I had stood upright by myself for the first time after knee surgery, only to have her immediately confiscate my crutches. But she was right. She usually is. I had finally turned the corner.
I wrote a post after my last session about how I had failed to allow my therapist to put me into hypnosis. Had my internal gate keepers not repulsed her, we’d have looked to meet a ten year old boy, left at boarding school by his parents without a hug, hiding under the sheets while a terrified boy my own age is threatened with a beating in the corridor.
I started the session by reading that post to her. As I got to the final paragraphs, despite having read them a hundred times myself, I broke down into tears.
“Perhaps then my gatekeepers would allow the therapist and my adult self to meet child me and tell him it’s OK now; tell him that his parents truly loved him even if they couldn’t show it; tell him he doesn’t have to worry about being punished any more and finally free him from the past.”
I sobbed my way through the words, suddenly full of empathy and compassion for that sad, frightened little boy. The therapist’s reaction told me that I had somehow completed the previous session on my own, without hypnosis, but instead through the connection to the past provided by my own words. She softly said “Wow…. Wow…..Wow!” with tears in her eyes as, sat in front of her, I peeled back layer after layer of the hardened skin that has protected me from the hurt of that little boy for a lifetime.
That connection to my younger self hadn’t happened in the previous session. It hadn’t happened when I wrote the words. But it was happening now as I read them out loud in the conservatory of a semidetached house in Hertfordshire on a sunny winter day. I had no choice but to let out all the emotion of the remembered hurt, my words borne into the room on a tide of tears. I’m letting it all out again, just as hard, as I write this. Fuck. What a place to get to!
Later she messaged me, describing it as: “A real moment of witness and presence to that child version of you and the wound he’s carried all these years.”
I was on a roll now. Once I’d recovered a bit, I launched into a post that went further into my time at school:
“Is this then the true origin of my kinks?” I read “An early life that led me to link pain with the intimacy that was otherwise withheld, followed by a school life that made the same kind of pain exciting, erotic and validating, and yet denied me the experience of it. Small wonder I have spent so much time chasing that experience since then!”
More revelations. More understanding. More acceptance. She shared my excitement at these discoveries, gently encouraging me to push further.
I shared my new- found acceptance, now that I understand its origins, that spanking myself is part of what it is to be me and she delighted in my new willingness to share that with others. Let them witness it even.
I’d seen my embarkation on a health regime, after years and years of hating myself for not doing so, as merely a reaction to recent health scares. With a little prompting from the therapist, I accepted that this is all one thing. The hurt child in me had been prompting decisions that were not in my own interest: “Finish the bottle! Eat the pasty” perhaps trying to be noticed. Perhaps, as in the past, he was hoping for the hug that never came. Finally seen, recognised, and loved, he has got out of my way and let me start looking after myself.
I’m rather drained now so I’m going to give the final word to my therapist, responding to me after I had emailed her the post I read during the session and invited her to have a celebratory lunch with me:
“Ah B, your journey back to yourself and all the parts of you being met and reintegrated (mind/body unity) is just incredibly beautiful and wonderful. It does indeed make me so happy and my heart so full. Thank you so much for sharing this powerful piece with me.
I feel incredibly privileged to have sat alongside you to this point and you are indeed, more than ready now to walk your path guided by your own inner light and intuition. Free to live, love and actively experiencing life and all your emotions with inner presence and containment.
I’ve just loved our work together and the very special relationship between us. I would be honoured to share a lunch with you. There’s a time for boundaries and also a time for freedom to celebrate in a way which honours the heart of you.
Just thrilled for you, very very well done! So happy you’re reaping the rewards of all your hard work.
Warmest wishes”
Post script:
One damp spring day last year, I was sat in a café in the New Forest having a pre-walk coffee with Nicky Campbell’s BBC radio talk show in my ears. He started talking about his own boarding school story, quietly and calmly relating the abuse he had suffered, the abuse he had witnessed. My coffee went cold and my eyes filled with tears at the awful story he shared and the phone-ins from people with similar stories of their own. It was horrific and deeply moving.
Objectively, my experience was mild compared to that of Nicky Campbell and so many, many others. I suffered no direct abuse or physical punishment at school, yet I can now accept that who I became was profoundly affected by those days and not always in positive ways.
The thing I would most like others carrying their own hurt child to take from my story is that therapy really can help and it’s never too late to start. I fought hard against the notion that my upbringing at home and boarding school might not have been as perfect as I had always told myself it was. My therapist eventually guided me through that and helped me connect with the parts of me that had suffered hurt as I was growing up. I am deeply grateful for all her work and am feeling more positive about the future than I have done for years.
At her suggestion, I will stop our regular meetings in a month or two. I’ll miss our sessions and the wonderful bond that we formed.
But I’m going to be flying solo now.
That’s amazing progress: It’s an absolute gift when you find a therapist who can guide you to a place where you can get to what you need on your own.
Congratulations on all the work you have done on yourself, and on the outcome.
Cheers to a joyful and unburdened future :).
Ferns
Interesting to read. I sometimes wonder about my kink, my not so right marriage to a wife who has many unresolved issues, my therapy experiencd… And the connection.between them.
Sure that submitting to a woman with a cane makes me feel stronger…. We did get spanked at school but not in an extreme or abusive way. I had a good but complicatec childhood.
Real men and women with ambition and talent often need relief from their professional rolez by submitting and letting the “other” take charge and push them beyond their limits.