I started to write this post awhile back and wasn’t able to finish it at the time. It is about an issue that many of us struggle with, however, so I think that it is worth finishing as best I can and putting out there. Hopefully doing so will also help to embed the lessons into my own mind, as well!
A couple of weeks ago, I sent Mama Bear a distress signal by email, letting her know that I was having problems and things felt “really strange” for me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to ask for any help until 10:30pm (over 3 hours into the crisis) which turned out to be after she picked up her last email of the night; fortunately, I had an appointment scheduled for the next day. She responded as soon as she got the email the next morning, but at that point I was only a bit over an hour away from my appointment, and had things contained enough to be able to wait to see her.
“I got your e-mail from last night, but didn’t see it until this morning,” she explained as we settled.
“I knew that would likely happen, given how late I sent it.”
“It sounds like you were really distressed and confused. Can you describe to me what happened? Don’t worry about trying to explain it, just describe it.”
I paused because the whole experience was so confusing that it was hard to think about even describing it. “Things were pretty ok during the day. I had a couple of surges of anxiety, but then I was able to breathe and it passed. But in the evening, something came up so strongly that I couldn’t even stay fully present while I was playing a game with my family. I’ve never before had something draw me away from that sort of family interaction before. They always keep me present, so whatever it was was powerful. Afterwards, I felt young, very frightened,, like I was in a dark place, and I couldn’t breathe. Then later, after that, it felt like there were so many parts present that I couldn’t even finish a thought before another part started another thought, I was bouncing between them so much. It was just so very, very confusing that I couldn’t make sense of anything but that something was very wrong.”
“And that was when you sent the e-mail to me?”
“Yes, but I really wanted to contact you earlier when I felt like I was in the dark place. But I just couldn’t.”
She looked at me sadly; this has been a longstanding problem of mine: when I am most in distress, I am least able to contact her for help.
Mama Bear asked me, “Sitting here, can you imagine yourself contacting me next time and asking for help?”
I looked at her blankly, struggling to think through the complicated mess that had been in my head the night before, remembering how impossible it had felt to come up with a way to describe what was going on and explain to her why I needed to talk to her.
She could see that I was not having success and tried another track. “Not so much, huh? Think about what you might say in a voice mail or text that would let me know that you needed for me to call you.”
When she suggested that approach, the obvious occurred to me, “I guess that I could say the same thing that I normally say. I’m having a hard time and I think that it would help to speak to you.”
“That definitely would work,” she agreed.
I thought back to the previous night, sitting there, huddled into the corner, feeling so young and overwhelmed by the idea of trying to find words to communicate with her. I could only think of one word that I could use.
“The problem was that I just couldn’t find words at all. The only thing that I could think of to say was ‘help’.” I looked at her feeling ashamed and embarrassed.
Her response was unexpectedly matter fact and calm. “That certainly would have gotten the needed message through to me. It would have done the job, C. What kept you from texting or calling and saying ‘help’?”
I looked at her, appalled at the idea. “It would have been completely melodramatic! I couldn’t do that!!!”
“I don’t really agree with you about it being melodramatic. But even if it was, what would the problem be with that?”
Fear coursed through me and I dove underneath the blanket spread over my lap, rapidly falling into a terrified child state. Immediately, Mama Bear said gently, but firmly, “C, you need to sit up and come back here. You are not in danger. I need for you to be able to tell me what is frightening the child so much.” Because she interrupted the process as soon as it started, I was able to pull most of the way out of it. If she had not, I likely would have spent a large portion of the session in a terrified state, struggling to verbalize anything.
I sat up, taking several deep breaths, feeling the air going in and out of my body, looking into her eyes, trying to ground in the here and now. As I came back, she said, “Good. That’s better. It looks like you are at least partially here now.”
I smiled shakily. “Yes. Partially. I went down really fast that time, didn’t i?”
“You sure did. You, my dear, really have a talent for dissociation. It saved you when you were young, but we do need to get it under control. It’s under better control than it was because you wouldn’t have been able to bring yourself out so easily a few months ago. But not getting triggered into it in the first place would be best of all. Are you ready to go back to what we were talking about?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
“Remember that we are here, in my office and that it is a safe place for you.” She glanced at her notes and asked again, “What would be the problem with being a little melodramatic? I don’t think that I have ever seen you truly melodramatic, by the way.”
I could feel the fear again, but I reminded myself that I really was in a place where no one would hurt me for talking. It didn’t stop me from shaking with fear, but at least it helped to me be able to stay in the room.
“I… I’m not sure…” I let myself connect to the feelings of fear. “It would be asking for too much attention. No, it would draw too much attention.” I grew even more afraid. “It’s like I have to be as quiet and still as possible. I can’t call out for help because it’s too dangerous!!!” By this point, I was crying and starting to curl up in a ball again, but I still was enough present to realize, “I’m remembering what it was like for me back then, aren’t I? It wasn’t safe for me to call out to my mother for help. I thought that I had to stay quiet, no matter what happened.”
She gently said, “Yes, this comes from what happened. We don’t know if your father said something to keep you quiet or if you were just controlled by your fear of what would happen if your mother knew about the abuse. Whatever it was, it made you too afraid to call out for help when you were being abused, no matter how much you wanted to. Just like you wanted to contact me last night, but couldn’t bring yourself to.”
I thought about what she said and then whispered in a young voice, “I don’t have to stay quiet anymore?”
“Not only do you not have to, I want for you to not be so quiet.” Her voice and face were so sincere that I knew for sure that she meant what she said.
“It’s ok for me to ask for help?”
“C, it isn’t just ok, it is very important that you learn that you can safely ask for help.”
I took in what what she said, trying to “hear” it all the way inside, which is where the confusion really is. The adult me understands all of these things, but the child parts, many of them are still very stuck in the ways of thinking that they learned when I was young.
Mama Bear seemed to come to a decision and said, “I’ll tell you what. If all that you can do is to text me or leave a voice mail saying “Help”, do that. I promise not to assume that you are about to fall off a cliff, but I will get back to you as soon as I can, at least to set up a time when we can talk. I want to know that you will contact me if you need me. Do you think that you can do that?”
I thought about what she said. A large part of me was hugely relieved at the thought of knowing that I could have this easy short hand way of communicating with her that I was in distress and I wouldn’t have to worry about how she would interpret it. We already had the meaning established. At the same time, the parts of me that see asking for help during those times to be a dangerous act were fearful at the thought. But I realized that finally understanding why contacting her at those times felt so dangerous could enable me to push past the paralyzingly fear that these parts carry. It’s safer now for me to be in touch with someone who cares about me and help ground me back into my present day than for me to struggle along on my own, remaining immersed in the trauma memories. The only way for the parts to learn that there is safety in calling out for help now is to do so and to receive the help that I need, breaking the script of remaining isolated with the abuse. Mama Bear has shown herself to be trustworthy over and over. I could trust her part in this experiment, I just had to push myself to do my own part.
I met her eyes and said, “Yes, I think that I can. If I know that you know how to hear my saying ‘help’, then I think that I can contact you with that, even if I can’t do anything else. I can’t guarantee it, because so often asking for help feels impossible, but I think that I could do that.”
She gave me a relieved smile, “Good. I can only ask you to try. Up until now the answer has always been ‘maybe’ every time I have tried to convince you to contact me in this sort of situation. This at least sounds like it might be possible.”
I haven’t needed to use the ‘code word’ yet, so I’m not sure how it will go. I did, however, contact her at a point when I might not have in the past. I had spent a day and a half unsuccessfully trying to ground in the present and I texted her, asking to talk, even though it was New Years Eve Day and she was on vacation. She had no problem with my talking with her because she understood just why I was having such a hard time and she wasn’t at all surprised that I needed the extra contact. I needed to be able to say things that I can’t yet say to anyone else and know that they would be heard and accepted. I needed to not cry alone for a bit, because I have spent too much of my life alone with what happened. Most of all, I needed to feel cared for by someone who knows the full story and understands why I am in such shock and pain.
I’m learning. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have called at all until I had reached the barely functional state because of emotional overwhelm. In regards to the incident that I had emailed about, that probably would have been hidden away inside and never talked about at all. When it comes to changing ways of thinking and being that multiple buried parts believe threaten my existence, I can be a very slow learner. But I am learning.
Reading this, i felt like i was in the therapy room, diving under the blanket, and working through the fear of talking about why asking for help is so hard. I am so glad you have deceloped a code word, and that you can ask for help when you need it now– hopefully. I wonder if some of this is about learning self compassion and believing you deserve help? (Or maybe that is just my issue).
And i do get the needing to talk to your therapist because they are the only one you can say some things to, and you have been alone with this stuff far too long.
You are doing so good, and i am so glad you posted this. It is important. 😊Xx❤️
(Sorry for the crazy long reply. )
In the past, there was a large “I don’t deserve help” component to being unable to ask for help until I was at the crisis stage. It drove Mama Bear a bit crazy because it both made me miserable and it made her job a lot harder. I don’t know how many times she told me that she would rather talk to me more often, before I had already gone down the rabbit hole than fewer times, but have to scrape me together each time. The smart woman figured out that I wouldn’t make the change just for myself, but I probably would if I knew that it would help her as well.
Don’t worry about long replies! They feel like conversations to me and help me to feel less alone. 🙂
That was very smart of her, and I am glad she figured out a way to make it easier to ask for help. The times I have texted Bea are usually for appointment changes, or that kind of thing, I always email. But my hubby has texted her a few times asking her to call because I am falling apart. And she called. And it was fine, she wasn’t mad, there was no problem. It’s amazing how hard it can be to ask for help when it’s no big deal to the person we are asking.
I like long replies, too, for that same reason. I just worry others might feel differently.
That ‘codeword’ makes so much sense to me. With parts triggered, I also find often I can’t get it together to explain what’s wrong. You are lucky MB is so responsive to you. I’m happy for you.
Thank you, Ellen. Yes, I think that the code word has the potential to be very helpful and I feel very lucky to have found Mama Bear.
This post went right through me. I love the things that trust can start to heal.
So true!
I get there are so many parts to our healing. Right now, I am connecting to my trauma while in the womb. It had a profound effect on my life. It is with deep sadness that I hold that part of myself. I Really like the way you talk about talking I am a little jealous of how connected you are to your body. I have grown a lot in the area but my constriction befuddles me a lot. I wonder if it will ever leave. I also liked that you found a way to release your own traumatic energy within your body.
Hi, Janet. There sure are a lot of parts to our healing. Multilayered, long term, developmental trauma is incredibly complicated to deal with. Often it feels as though there is no part of the Self that escaped entirely unscathed.
Sorry, I accidentally hit reply on my phone!
I am so sorry about the prebirth trauma.
I am glad that posted, because I was going to post on your blog about the constriction and restorative yoga, but I will say it here. I don’t seem to have the restriction as badly as you do, but it is something that I deal with. I see it as being like an armor that my body doesn’t realize that I no longer need to wear. By shedding that restriction, I am hoping that I will be able to soften and be more a part of my environment rather than apart from my experience. It’s slow learning, though, and at the moment it’s bad enough that I’m experiencing some numbness at times in my fingers and face, I’m sure from constricted nerves under all of those muscles.
And again…
I have done a good bit of restorative yoga and have it to be both very helpful and vey challenging. The release and relaxation into the poses is good for my nervous system. I find it to be quite useful when I am trying to fend off a migraine. I prefer to hold the poses for a long time, 3-5 minutes or even longer when it comes to migraines. However, I can only do 4 or 5 poses at a time, fewer if I am holding the poses for longer. As with all yoga, the thing is to listen to your body. If there are certain poses that feel really good, do those and not the others.
My problem with restorative yoga is not physical, really, it is that I seem to hold memories of my abuse in my body, both the emotions and the kinesthetic memories. If I try to do a full yoga session, I almost always trigger memories at some point or another. It rather defeats the purpose of trying to relax to start a flashback. I’m trying to figure out the best way to proceed with that reaction.