Today's episode is a bit of a breakthrough for her:
“Did it feel like family to you?”
Sue was sitting quietly, notepad in her lap, pen held loosely in
her hand. I was there for my regular appointment, and also because I was
feeling frustrated at my own ambivalence since that moment Saffron had said those words in my kitchen on New Year's Day.
I turned the thought over in my mind (like I hadn’t already done
this a thousand times in the past few days).
“It felt comfortable, like neither of them was a guest I had to
entertain.”
“Is that your definition of family? That you don’t need to
entertain them?”
I smiled, it did sound a bit strange repeated back to me.
“My definition of family has been me and the kids for a long time
now. My thoughts about family keep going back to my marriage.”
Sue stared at me for a few seconds, before scribbling in her
notepad. When she finished she leaned forward slightly. I mentally girded my
loins, Sue leaning forward meant she was going to say something to shake up my
world.
“Cassie, may I ask if you are feeling the ambivalence because of
what happened with Nathan? Do you feel that you are not yet free of the
effects?”
“You mean do I still feel connected to Nathan? Because I don’t. I
felt no attraction or feeling of guilt when he tried to kiss me.”
“That’s kind of what I mean, and I’m pleased you have been able to
put that behind you. But what I meant is a bit different. Do you still feel responsible
for what happened? Do you feel that you are not worthy of a good relationship?”
We had discussed this topic before, I was sure it was the root of
my ambivalence toward a relationship with Nathan. I stared at Sue, trying to
understand my own emotions.
“I still have trouble understanding how I am feeling.”
“Yes, you dissociated from your own emotions, it was a coping
mechanism. Cassie, you should not underestimate the depth of the trauma you
experienced. I hesitated to diagnose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because
you did not display all of the pointers - some, but I didn’t think enough at
the time. Perhaps I was wrong. Now you have become stronger; you have learned
so much about yourself. But, I think you are not yet fully healed. It takes a
long time, you were a victim of mental abuse, a specific type of domestic abuse
at the hands of a person with narcissistic personality disorder. Does this
sound accurate to you?”
Sue paused to take a sip of coffee, watching the impact of her
words on me.
I shifted uncomfortably. It still made me feel a little bit sick
to talk about my marriage, to remember the details that can only be described
as sordid. Not that I could remember all of them, another coping mechanism of
mine was to blank out the worst parts. I still had no memory of what Nathan
screamed at me in any of his rages, only of lying curled up on the floor at his
feet. Only the dark, deep despair I felt. But I had enough memories to feel
dirty every time I let them into my conscious mind. I sipped my own coffee,
noting the tremors that shook my hands, evidence that I was feeling far worse
than I was letting myself know.
“I believe I still employ dissociation. I don’t allow myself to
feel anything deeply. Like now, my hands are shaking.” I help out my hands to
show Sue. “But if you asked me I would say I feel a bit uncomfortable.”
Sue remained silent as I continued to process my thoughts.
“I think I still feel responsible, for the failure of the marriage
I mean. I no longer feel responsible for making Nathan happy. Although,” I
admitted as a ray of understanding lit up my mind, “I did have to stop myself
from falling into that old habit when Nathan said he wanted us to be friends.
And I guess I allowed myself to be manipulated into inviting him and Lucy to
the party.”
I stared at Sue as another ray of understanding shone through the
confusion that usually clouded my brain whenever I tried to think objectively
about Nathan.
“Actually I fell back into the old patterns because I agreed we
could be friends. But we can’t can we? Because Nathan will always have an
agenda beyond that.”
Sue smiled, but remained silent.
“And I think it is my own feelings of inferiority that I have to
overcome. AND, I am afraid of failure. I failed so epically in my first
marriage, how will I cope if I fail in this relationship with Matt. Can I
handle that?”
Sue scribbled in her book, looked up at me and made to speak but I
overrode her – for perhaps the first time in our relationship.
“No, I didn’t fail in my marriage. Who could succeed with someone
like Nathan? No-one, nobody could ever be good enough for him, nobody could
ever feed his needs indefinitely. Every woman in a relationship with him is
going to burn out. It was not my fault.”
As I spoke, with genuine conviction, I felt the weight of
responsibility – the weight I didn’t know I was still carrying – lift from my
shoulders. I could feel tears flood my eyes and tried desperately to blink them
back in. Showing emotion in this way was always going to embarrass me.
Sue leaned forward, handed me the box of tissues that was always
at hand.
“Cry it out Cassie,” she said softly. “What you suffered has
changed you, perhaps forever. But you are strong and you are coming out the
other side of this. Today is a breakthrough day. You have finally expressed
your emotions about your marriage verbally, believed your words in your heart and
you’ve let it go. Your tears are your release valve. So cry it out and let it
all go.”
I half smiled at her through the tears, before indulging in a
sobfest that I can assure you, dear reader, happens only rarely.
Once the tears stopped and I’d mopped my face and drunk some much
needed, rapidly cooling coffee, I shared the other ray of light that had shone
in my mind even as I sobbed. The mind never turns off does it?
“I employ dissociation with strong emotions, good and bad. My
feelings for Matt run deeper than I’ve let myself acknowledge. That’s why I
keep on vacillating like this.”
Sue smiled at me. “What makes you think this?”
I hate the way she makes me pull out my emotions and examine them.
“Because of how happy I am to see him, because of how he makes me
laugh, because of how safe I feel when I am with him, because of how my body
reacts to him. And because I can’t imagine my life without him in it.”
“What do you think makes a good relationship?”
Tricky questions today. “I think the most important thing to me
now is mutual respect. Trust, friendship, attraction, sex of course. But not
sex as the answer to everything or as the reason for everything. To feel equal
in the relationship.” I thought a bit more. “To be able to state my opinion and
have it listened to and respected as my opinion. To be able to have an argument
about something without feeling like a bug under someone’s shoe for daring to
go against his words, to be able to have a fight and it’s just a fight, not
ammunition for a future rage or the spark for an instant rage. To have someone
care for me as me and not as a useful verbal punching bag.”
I was on a roll now. “To be comfortable in each other’s company,
and free to do other things with other people and it’s not a betrayal. To feel
safe.” I paused, repeated it. “To feel safe. And, to feel like an individual, a
separate person who is happy within the relationship but also, to be me. To be
me, just me, and to be accepted and loved for who I am. To not feel like I am
always wrong, always not good enough, always less important.”
I looked Sue in the eyes. “I want someone who loves me for me,
someone I can love in return without it being a competition.”
I paused, running my words back through my mind. “That was a lot
of repetition wasn’t it?”
Sue smiled again. “Kind of. I think this is the first time you
have thought about a relationship from your point of view. What you want as
opposed to what you must give to make someone else happy, or to try to make
someone else happy. Can you reduce it to one sentence? What is the most
important thing to you, or the two most?”
What was the most important thing? “It’s two, but I think really
it’s one. Maybe. I don’t know. To be loved, and to feel safe. But I think if
you are truly loved by someone, you will also feel safe. Is that right? And
respect, but again I think that comes with true love. I don’t think that anyone
who truly loved me would ever seek to make me feel small, or to rage at me
until I am so scared I block it out. I don’t think, in an equal relationship, in
a true partnership, there is room for someone like Nathan. Because with Nathan
it was not a partnership, it was a onemanship.”
Sue snorted in amusement, but her eyes were kind. “You can’t have
a partnership with a narcissist, it’s all about them whether they play the
dominant role or the victim role. And they can’t truly love, it’s not possible
for them. It’s a sad and lonely existence for a narcissist. Cassie, I’m so
proud of you. It takes courage to recover from the sort of mental abuse that
you suffered. It takes years of work on the self to understand and accept what happened
and to move on. I think you are ready to move on. You understand yourself and
you know what you want – even if you choose a wordy way of expressing it!” She
laughed when I looked aggrieved. “Like I said Cassie, I think this has been the
first time you have verbalized what it is that you want from a relationship.
Congratulations! You have put your marriage in the past, your (misplaced) sense
of responsibility about it behind you. You have verbalized what it is that you
want from a partnership and you have given a great description of true love.”
I wasn’t done worrying though. “But what if I enter into a
relationship with Matt and I fall back into the old patterns? What if I don’t
know how to have an equal relationship?”
“Do you think Matt knows how to?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes he does.”
“Do you think he will understand when you struggle, and want to
help you? Do you think he will be patient with you and give you time to adjust?”
“Yes he will.”
“So what exactly are you worried about?”
I grinned, feeling a lightness fill my head. “I don’t know. Maybe the
first thing I have to learn is how not to worry!”
Sue smiled again. “Cassie, the timing in this is your decision.
You’ve told me that Matt is willing to wait. And he has shown you that he puts
your well-being ahead of a, er, well ahead of his physical needs.”
“He did didn’t he? He could have taken me to bed on New Year’s
Eve, or day or whenever it was by then. He didn’t. Nathan would have and not
considered how I would feel. Matt put me first.”
I smiled at the thought, and then panicked. “But what if Matt
always puts me first, aren’t I then the narcissist?”
Sue laughed, a full bodied laugh of genuine amusement. “Oh Cassie,
only you could think that! Do you really think that will happen? What do you
think happens in an equal, loving relationship?”
“Each one puts the other first. Not in a competition, but in true
caring.”
“Exactly. You work together in a partnership with mutual respect
and mutual love. Sometimes one is the caretaker, sometimes the other. When one
is down the other picks him or her up. That’s how it works Cassie.”
“Kind of like a friendship, but with sex.”
It was my turn to laugh at Sue’s shocked look. “Don’t panic! I
think I get it. But it is friendship isn’t it? You’re friends, lovers,
partners.”
Sue looked at her watch, the raising of her eyebrows telling me it
was likely past time for me to go.
“How did it get so late? We’re going to have to end it here
Cassie. Are you ok to drive? Today was a big session for you.”
I picked up my bag, and threw my empty coffee cup and used tissue
into the bin. “I’m fine Sue. I think I’m more than fine.”
“Come see me next week, if that’s ok with you.”
“I will, I’ll make an appointment on the way out.”
I paused at the door. “Maybe I’ll ask Matt to come over tonight.”
I laughed and sashayed out as Sue stared at me open-mouthed. I had
been joking, but maybe, finally, now was the time to have a well overdue talk
with Matt about our relationship.
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