Pronouns

So often, language can fail us. We just can’t quite find the right words or know how to express something in the correct way, or a way that truly conveys the meaning we are trying to put across. At times, never is this more true than in the therapy room, when we try and put our experiences into words, which can only ever touch the surface of those experiences. As therapists try and get an insight into the world of another, using the only tools they have available to them, which isn’t just language, but language is so much of it.

And then, within this, there is the way we refer to ourselves or our clients. And one that is becoming more pronounced is ensuring we are using the correct pronouns that our clients identify with. And, in English, it is hard when it can feel like there is so much weight in gender and he and she just aren’t enough. And I wonder whether languages that don’t distinguish gender in pronouns do any better or whether this brings its own problems. But gender is not where my thoughts are sitting today, today it is with the ideas of multiplicity.

As a general rule, I use singular pronouns for the most part. And I have had to question this, because my mind is not a singular person. But I am a singular person. And how do you split and distinguish between me and we and them, when this can all change within a matter of a sentence or two. And how much do I disclose if I do not use a singular pronoun. What do I tell people by using a plural pronoun and do I want people to know that, or wonder about it, or have reason to question.

When I say “I”, generally I mean myself. Adult me, here and now. And while this maybe the case, there is a little niggle at the back of my mind, that sometimes it is not what I mean. It is she, or they, or we. In some ways, the issue is not that complicated, I have all the pronouns needed to describe the different situations. If it’s here and now adult me, it’s “I/me”. If it is one of the others, it is “she/her”, as they all identify as girls. If it is more than one of them at the same time, it is “they/them”. And if it is me plus any combination of the others, it is “we/us”. But, so often this feels so complicated. I might need to distinguish who is thinking or feeling what and to express it, and I might have the pronouns to cover the different possibilities or who might be talking, but there is always something missing from this. There is always something that these words don’t somehow cover and that I wish gave me more. That I wish there were an easier way to express myself, that takes in everybody, but without having to explain who I might mean.

I also struggle with the idea of using a pronoun that goes against the norm. That, by using a third person pronoun or a plural pronoun when talking about myself, gives away something of who I see as me that I don’t know I want to share with everyone. And yet, by not using them, I am forever hiding a part of me, like it always has to be hidden, and in some ways I find that it does. I have spent a long time ashamed of the way my mind works. I understand it, I understand that in many ways my brain did an amazing, fantastic thing to help me survive, but it also eats away at me. And I’m not sure I want the world to know that part of me.

And then, well, then we have what do I hold as the therapist in the room. And it’s interesting, because so often I would say at the moment I am sat across from another person is the moment that I can confidently say that I am singular. It’s not that the others aren’t there, I guess they are never completely gone. But they know, at those moments of the week, that I need to be here and now adult. So then, even if I did start to think about using more of those other pronouns, that all gets shut away again at the point of needing to sit across from a client. And I question my responsibility in this. Do I hold responsibility of not just sticking to the norm, to model that it is ok and not something to be scared of, but something to embrace? I don’t currently have the answers to that. While in general I can see my own argument in that, again, sat across from another person I wonder how much it would complicate their experience.

So again, I wonder, whether it would be easier if there was just one word, which covers all meanings, but would usually be worked out in the context. Then, I might have to explain the context if I wanted to, but I could also leave it ambiguous at other times, and not need to have to explain. And people could take the “normal” meaning, but that wouldn’t have to be what I meant, and I could be honest with myself, without having to also declare it to the world.

Lockdown Continues

There is a real issue, that is going on, bubbling under the surface. That everyone is going through lockdown, everyone is finding it tough, and so therefore, no one is allowed to complain about it, and no one can recognise the effect it is having on people. There is talk of how it effects mental health, but no one is turning round and saying what should be done about this and how people can be helped. Instead, we should all just somehow pull together and get through this, and that once it is lifted, everything will go back to being ok again.

But they won’t. The impact on mental health, doesn’t just disappear when we come out of lockdown. Things have been imprinted on our brains, and they won’t just be erased. Things have changed and they won’t just go back to normal for everyone, because that no longer exists. The changes that have happened will stay with us for months or even years to come.

Lockdown also magnifies problems that were already there. Depression that may have been kept at bay and fairly stable creeps back in and starts to overwhelm again. Anxiety is amplified as we are constantly bombarded with information which could make anyone anxious. Eating disorders get to continue on behind closed doors and people become more and more isolated. Self-harm is just a way to survive the ongoing craziness. And all the other hundreds of problems and combinations of problems that are building up as people are stuck at home, staring at screens, isolated and away from their friends.

Counsellors are not immune to this. We can be there for others and listen to the struggles that they are having, while also stuck somewhere with our own battles. The more this goes on, the more these seem to be coming to the forefront for me. I got off my anti-depressants not that long ago, a small victory after really feeling the side effects. My depression had felt like it was stable, and I was ok without the medication. But just a few weeks later and I can feel it creeping back in, slowly consuming me again. The days are becoming harder and harder to get through. And this isn’t suddenly going to change as the restrictions get lifted, it’s another battle to find that level of stability again.

And then we have my parts. The poor abandoned others that don’t get a look in because I can barely keep it together for myself, let alone for them. And I wonder what it would be like if I every let slip the battles I have going on inside of me, and whether as a counsellor this “should” be happening. That inside my head are children fighting for some love and attention that I just don’t know if I have the energy to give to them. But there is also no one else to give them anything at the moment. If they don’t get it from me, who can they get it from? There is no one else. And the more they are on their own and they are abandoned, the worse they are getting, and the longer it is going to take to get them back out talking again, trusting again, feeling more integrated and stable again. The longer we are isolated, the more it takes to find an opening for them to have space.

There is so much more going on under the surface for people, and we aren’t seeing it all spilling out yet. But the cracks are starting to show more and more in the therapy room. In the waiting lists. In the crisis people are going through every single day. And it’s all very well hearing the same old platitude’s that we are all in this together, and in some ways we are. And in other ways, the mental health of every person is different, and for those of us who can feel ourselves slipping further and further into something, we aren’t just in it with everyone. We are going through our own individual, different battles, and will be for some time to come.

Sleep

Sleep is a weird thing, in that we all need it every day, and we know it is important, but I don’t think we truly realise just how much we need it until we don’t get enough. Sleep can often indicate other things in our lives, and most counsellors will ask about sleep in the assessment or throughout the counselling, as a way to get information. And this isn’t like too much sleep or not enough sleep immediately gives us any answers, but it is an indicator. People know when they feel like they are sleeping too much, and what it feels like not to want to get out of bed. People also know when they are not getting enough sleep, and how difficult it can be to function and how blurry it can make your brain.

Sleep has always been something I have found a bit of a battle. Growing up, I used to love spending time in my own bed when I could. Mainly because if I was in my bed I was safe and away from the world. I loved sleeping but it came with it problems, mainly nightmares. I could never explain to people why I was so tired all the time, because I couldn’t let people know that when I went to bed, my brain didn’t stop or that I would be awake with nightmares, or would be longing for sleep so much but at the same time be too scared to sleep. As I grew up, once I was out of home, I started sleeping more and more at random times. I found sleeping in the dark difficult, but with the light on or the TV, I discovered I could start to get more sleep. Sleeping in the day was easier than at night. I started taking naps that could easily be 2-3 hours long, because it was how I survived and got enough sleep. As a student, it was almost like this was expected. But as you keep getting older and enter full time work, suddenly the need for routine hit but I still wanted my long naps. I had to survive without then, and found myself during the week becoming more and more zombie like, and then crashing at weekends. But, I seemed to get used to it and survive.

And now, having been introduced to my parts, my sleep can be all over the place. Lottie loves staying up late. She plays games on my phone into the middle of the night and I have to put locks or limits on to it so that she will stop. She sneaks out and plays, and then wants to sleep during the day. Charlie doesn’t really like sleeping in a bed, but does like sleeping. Her place of choice would be a sofa. So she also stays up at night, sleeps during the day. At times it can feel like they drive me a little crazy, because sleep is important for all of us. Sometimes, the others don’t understand that we share the same body and that if this body doesn’t sleep, we are all going to suffer. It can feel like they don’t get that if this body doesn’t rest, then exhaustion kicks in and I get super tired and super grumpy!

I wish sleep were something we could do separately while someone else was still awake. It would give us all different times to be ourselves and not take into each other’s time. I used to not understand why I would be so tired when I couldn’t remember being awake, and then I learnt that it wasn’t me staying up so late. So now, we have to try and negotiate, to make sure this body can get enough sleep, that our eyes are actually closed, and sometimes that is really hard because someone wants to be doing something, but, we are all slowly understanding the importance of this. Looking back, I just don’t know whether in the past I was the one who couldn’t sleep, or whether someone else was staying up.

I’m not sure where this post this going. I have just been thinking more and more about sleep, maybe because I feel like I haven’t been getting enough sleep again at the moment!

A different kind of Christmas

We all knew this year, December would be different. But I don’t think we realised how things would be. We look back over the last year, and the pandemic has been a year now. And we could never imagine that something could still be shutting down countries and the world in the way that it is. We kid ourselves that in this day and age we can fight anything and don’t want to face the fragility that we still hold as humans. We are not all powerful, there are still so many things out there that can knock us off our feet, not only individually, but collectively as well. And promises were made, we were told that Christmas we would be able to see friends and loved ones, that we would be able to celebrate together and hug each other and things would be back to normal. And yet, many people were put under harder restrictions and had their Christmas cancelled. So Christmas had to be rethought.

And, there are lots of thoughts around this. There is the side that my heart slightly breaks for. Those people who have been isolated, for who the relaxed rules around Christmas felt like a life-saver because they could get a little fix of human contact, knowing that that was going to keep them going for this next bit of time. Those whose mental health has now gotten worse and continues on that downward path because the end they had hoped was in sight is slowly moving further and further away. That hope that they have tried to hold on to is slipping through their fingers and they are wondering what these next few months will hold. There are so many people saying that Christmas is not cancelled, it is just different. To some extent, there is so much truth in that. But the other side is, if you have been holding on to having those few days of contact that you have needed, suddenly taken away from you, it is not just changing plans. It is taking away the rock that your finger-tips have been clinging on to that has been stopping you from falling down. It is removing hope. It is taking away your mental way of getting through the winter. And people are encouraging others to reach out to every one, but the problem is, so many people hide this and don’t admit that this is where they are at, so people don’t know to reach out to them because they seem “fine”.

I speak of this first, because I don’t what to take away from the devastation that has been felt by so many people. But there is another side. For me, at the moment, there is something about this year where in some ways it feels like my brain has allowed to be more free. Christmas is usually busy, filled with people and talking and doing things. And it’s not that part of me doesn’t enjoy that, because it does. And I get to see people and family members that I don’t get to see at any other time of year, and therefore this year haven’t been able to see at all, and there is certainly some sadness in that. But, the other side of this, is that my brain has had so much more time and space. My parts have been around and chatting to each other, and have been remembering the happy times of Christmas they have, and the horrific parts. They haven’t had to hide, or be hidden so that I can just be adult me around others. The time and space has, in a weird way, been kind of healing for us. That I am probably unusual in the fact that this different kind of Christmas has been what I needed, rather than a horrible thing enforced on me.

I wonder, how many people who actually need a break, ever get to take them. We all live under the pressures of life and work. I think back to the clients I have had over the last 6-8 months as I have been back working with clients, and I wonder how many of them would like a break where their brains could just be free and relax for some time. Our brains are amazing things. They have ways of working and keeping us safe that we are still learning about and discovering. My brain is split because it kept me safe, and in many ways it still works in that way to protect me from unspeakable pain. But what else is going on in the brains of those who come to us, that are there and working because without us knowing it, it is keeping us safer and away from pain. And sometimes, when our brains don’t stop, it’s because there is too much there and we can’t face it at the moment. But what would it be if we could just offer to someone that it’s ok to stop and let our brains do their thing for a little while, before we pick ourselves up and continue again with a little renewed strength.

Suicide/Suicidal Thoughts

I feel like suicide can still be such a big taboo. Like you shouldn’t talk about it. Or that maybe you feel like you can’t talk about it because you can never be 100% sure how people are going to react. And there’s always the fear that they will go into over-drive and report what you have said so someone because you are a “risk”. And, I guess it is worth saying from the beginning that I do not want to make light of this, or pretend that there are those who are in need of real, immediate help and sometimes we do have to act on what we are told.

I suppose the question is one of balance. It’s why is counselling training we are taught to ask questions about risk and intent. To see whether we need to act now or not. But here’s the thing. Sometimes I wonder, what would a trainee counsellor do if they met me. And in some senses I think there are trainee counsellors who have met me, my coursemates being the obvious one. But I hide this part of myself, from fear of what they might say or do, through fear that they will feel the need to report it to lecturers or someone else and things will snowball out of control.

Because, the simple fact is… I am suicidal, I think about suicide frequently. It’s there, somewhere in my mind, more often than it’s not, and most days. I have the drugs that I could use to do it. I know they are there, and strangely there is some comfort knowing they are there. I frequently want nothing more than to die, to finish it, to end it all. But here is the other fact, I do not consider myself to be a risk or at risk. Because, I know, when I take a step back from all the noise in my head, not all of me actually wants to die. There is a part, that can see all the crap and the pain, but still knows there is another part, fighting and working through it all so there will come a day when those dark thoughts aren’t so loud.

On the dark days, when I lay in bed, screaming into a pillow, wishing that everything would just stop, I would love to pick up the phone and say to someone, “Hey, it’s really tough right now, I’d quite like to end it all, can we just talk for a few minutes?” and for them to be able to hold that without panicking or thinking about whether I am “safe” or not. That sometimes, I just need to be able to say, this is really hurting so so much and it is making me feel like this, and I just need someone to know how much it hurts and how scary my thoughts have gotten, without them jumping on the need to fix or make things better. That a friend with a listening ear might be all it needs to make the difference, to shine a light into the patch of darkness I’m currently in.

Sometimes, I get scared that these thoughts mean I shouldn’t be training as a therapist at all. Why would anyone want someone as a therapist that can still hurt so much themselves? But then I also think, why wouldn’t they. Therapists are human beings who are alive, and who therefore go through their own piles of crap. And how much more can we understand when a client talks of their struggles if we know what it is to struggle. There is a balance to be held there, a balance between realising everyone struggles and keeping on going, and realising that you need to stop and take a self-care break or things could turn not good.

I wish there were a way to be more open about it. To feel like these things could be talked about more honestly and openly without people getting scared. And to say that anyone shouldn’t have these thoughts and feelings is also rubbish. They are thoughts and feelings, which doesn’t mean they are facts and truth, but they are very real in the moment. And maybe if we could be more open about them, it would light up a few more spots in the darkness, so that it is not so scary in that place.

Anniversaries

Anniversaries are always tough. It was a few days ago now and I didn’t have the time and space on the day itself. (On a side note, I’m not sure deciding to start a blog just as I have assignments due was the best idea!) I wonder whether there will ever be a year where I won’t just want to curl up and scream for the day. But I do survive it every year.

It was, without doubt, the worst day of my life. It’s been 19 years this year and I don’t know how that much time has passed. In some ways it was a lifetime ago. In other ways it come have happened yesterday. On the day, I thought I was going to die. I thought I had finally pushed everything too far and the line had been crossed that I couldn’t come back from. Sometimes, the worst part of not dying is the pain you are left with when you survive. Not only that, but the pain of losing my child in the process goes beyond what words can describe. There is no way to say how much losing your child hurts, how it leaves a massive hole in your heart and in your life the sometimes feels like it will always be there and never be filled.

I do think that maybe anniversaries do get ever so slightly easier. It is never going to be an easy day, and I really miss some of the support I have had in past years. I missed the beach where we sailed the paper boats in her memory. I missed being with people who know about all of us and could look after all of us rather than just me. I missed having people around me who just knew and knew to come and give me a hug and just hold me up a bit. And maybe the thought of the day is sometimes more overwhelming than the actual day itself, and I survived it again, which is all I can ask of myself. Sometimes I think part of what can make it so hard, is not having people that know. When I want to celebrate what should have been her birthday and to remember, there is no one to do that with. And no one to remember, no one to say something to me without me having to say something first.

One of the scariest things I have realised over time is that actually I wasn’t that scared of death when it happened. It was only after did the fear creep in to it. And I’ve realised that I was so used to pain, so used to feeling like my world was ending and so used to feeling like I was dying, that when it happened this time, it was just another time to me. I cannot really explain what it feels like to think you are going to die when you feel completely calm about it. When you are just so used to pain that death almost feels welcome and that helps calm you down, it’s scary. No 15 year old should feel so used to pain that they would welcome death and be calm about death because it would end the pain.

Sometimes I think I still stand in this place. That sometimes I welcome death because it would stop the pain. I do know that there is another answer, death is not the only way, but it is hard to hold onto that. Death feels so peaceful and life feels hard and painful. But pushing through and finding where life could be peaceful would be an amazing thing to do. And every year I have proved that horrible anniversaries are survivable.

This is not just for me. Charlie, my 15 year old inside, is who lives with it far more than I do. She is the one who holds so much more of the pain, who needs so much more love and care than I do. I do my best for her, but I am not always good at that. And she doesn’t always want me. She has her own people that she is attached to, that she wants more than anything else. But sometime, I also need to recognise that she is an amazing girl, who survived things no one should ever have to face and go through. She has a strength that blows my mind. And sometimes, I have to look to her strength and the way she has survived and gotten through all that she has, to remind myself that if she had to battle so much and if she can stay alive and fight her way through it all, then I owe it to her to do the same.

Self-Care

I am really having to start learning about self-care. I think I know about it, but really, I might be able to see various aspects of it but I am certainly not good at it. Sometimes, people just say do some exercise or have a bath, or something like that. But really, not often is that an actual practical solution or what is needed at the time.

Self-care for me at the moment has many different faces. I have been battling with my anti-depressant medication for a while, and I am currently in the process of changing medication. I am doing this under the watchful eye of a brilliant doctor and wouldn’t want to do it any other way now. That has not always been the case. I have taken myself off medication more times than it is probably good to admit. I just get bored and fed up of taking it and think I can do without. Sometimes, I have managed a few months with no medication, but I know that messing around with them makes things worse. So this time, I’m not getting off but I am changing to something that isn’t so horrible, and doing it properly. It’s hard work, the withdrawal symptoms from the old medication are horrible and my brain goes fuzzy very often. Maybe that’s why I have not been as good as writing as I wanted, but trying not to pressure myself is all part of the self-care.

Then we have home and work life in the middle of a pandemic. I am locked down again with a family that is not my own. Sometimes, I feel really broken with the loneliness and the challenge of being with another family that gets to be together. Sometimes, I don’t want to have to deal with an 18 month old, however cute he is. I did not sign up to live in a house with a small child, but the pandemic changed things. And in normal circumstances when I am out all day at work it would be fine. But it is not how life is at the moment. The office is still open a couple of days a week, so I do get an escape, and I never knew I would enjoy going into the office as much as I do. It has become my happy place and I never thought I would say that.

Being on a course brings all sorts of different challenges and pressures. Turning up to lectures and discussions and groups can be hard work, but I am learning that sometimes just turning up is enough. I beat myself up about this and it is an area that I have to find some more compassion for myself in. My brain tells me I should be doing more. But at the moment, looking after myself, keeping myself safe, allowing myself to just be is what is needed. There is an essay due in and I have asked for an extension. For a lot of people that is nothing. For me, that is a huge deal. It breaks all ideas that I have to be perfect and do everything “right”. It is hard for me to have asked for it, but having that extra bit of time helps take the pressure off and allows me time and space to write. The extension is only 2 weeks, but it is all that is needed to give myself just enough breathing space.

With counselling training comes a placement. And if asking for an extension on an essay was hard, admitting I needed a break from client work was even harder. I have pushed myself hard. I have got the hours I need to get over 2 year within 8 months. So I have the breathing space. But this to me feels like failing. That I “should” be superhuman and “should” be able to keep going. But, that does not serve my clients and is not safe and helpful for them. Self-care becomes important because only in looking after yourself can you truly be there for your clients. All my narratives tell me that I need to just keep going, but a very quite whisper inside says it can be ok to stop.

Sometimes self-care is just allowing yourself time and space to do more or something you really enjoy. For me at the moment, that is doing more craft activities. For others, it will be reading or writing or exercise or, whatever it is that makes you feel more alive. Doing the things that we so often tell ourselves that we are too busy to do. But, the strange thing is, if we let ourselves have some time out to do the things we love, it can lift us to enable us to do other parts of life better.

And here is my final piece of self-care. I have pressure on myself, to write better, to find something profound to say, to write more… but, that is not where I am at tonight. So, we will leave it here. And there are many other ways I am sure that could be listed, and everyone’s way of self-care will be different, but think about yours and see what is needed.

An Introduction to Me and My World

I have started blogs before and kept them hidden from the world. I am not sure my words are ones that people would care about or would want to read. But the more I learn about me, and the further I walk in training to be a counsellor, the more I find I have words I want to share. Not because I think I have any great knowledge to give, but I am used to seeing the world through multiple sets of eyes and sometimes this gives a different perspective.

I am not writing this as an expert. I am writing to start to share things from my world, from my point of view. A place to put things I have learnt or seen or realised or need to rant about. A place to explore the worlds of working in mental health and living with mental health and how for me they collide, recognising they collide for everyone else in different ways. A place to share quotes which resonate and why they do. A place to put out ideas from what I have read.

I used to think counsellors had to somehow be perfect. That they had to have life all sorted and put together, that they wouldn’t get affected by things and always knew how to handle everything. But, this is not why people become counsellors. Most people who I have met along the way, are working or training as a counsellor because they have walked along their own paths, and many are still walking along them. It gives a greater and deeper understanding. One thing I am learning is sometimes life can feel like it is too much, like somehow what I have gone through is too big or too overwhelming to allow me to be training. This is all lies, but it’s something that doesn’t often get talked about and I think needs to be. I think that will be a separate post. But it is to say that we all have things we tell ourselves about our lives and it can be difficult to see them as truth or lies.

As I am starting this blog, we are in the middle of a global pandemic. The mental health implications of this are still very much unknown, but more and more people are finding it difficult, and that includes counsellors. It includes me, but I think it could be argued that mine has been a little more unstable for longer than this, as it has for so many others. What we are learning is the pandemic is shining a spotlight on to certain areas.

If and when I start to share this blog with people more, I would welcome comments and questions. I will endeavour to answer them as best I can in the hope to help others view the world in a wider more colourful way.