Rings around the moon.

When I look into the feeling of grief, I find an intense sensation of loneliness, of falling. The metaphor of a room a thousand years wide (SoundGarden) reminds me of when my husband came into my room (before he told me that he was in love with me) and put the headphones over my ears...and that song? Within the metaphor I recognised how lonely I'd felt - abandoned actually (because I was abandoned by my eldest son's dad) and it was beyond awful, but I hadn't felt as if the expanse was endless... Like father like son?  I think my son is there - in his father's room, the thousand years wide room.  When I think about it, the way my husband was - the fear, exhaustion, scared to leave the house. The flood of texts about wanting to be home, safe, with me (!) the 'love bombing' was all about anxiety I guess? His fundamental, autonomic nervous system settings - is one way to distance myself from the sense of powerlessness it evoked in me; I just thought it would pass. I...

  I don't have a date for this one. Sometime between May 2019 and May 2020 I remember it very well, and that's a good thing.  My son doesn't have any recordings and so he rants at me about his dad, and that has been dragging me, metaphorically, over and through broken glass. And about an hour ago I reached breaking point and let myself fall into it - into the howling pain of it.  So I needed to remember. To get myself back I've plugged in my headphones, dragging up old sound files to know what was said to me. When I remember how bad it was, then any sense of loss and grief is drowned out by the truth. In October 2019 I identified the prime emotion of this time - it was terror. May seem inexplicable, like how could I have felt that way, why wasn't it sadness or anger? I can't tell you. I don't know - but terror was the flavour of that year , something so terrible, erosive about the lying? Possible. Losing trust in myself was the most damaging part, the way he...

I believe that I have finally untangled the threads - that I’m well on my way to describing the forces that caused the pain in my therapy. In Hegelian terms, my therapy was a tragedy. Both parties - myself as the client, he as the therapist - both of us thought that we were right. Neither of us could see the other’s reasoning as legitimate. So the only possible ending is, according to Mr Hegel, ‘the hero dies at the end’. Now. Here I am. In the library with Tesco sandwiches, crisps and fruit juice, planning what comes next. Still alive! I have my university place in September, and so I’m beginning to focus in on the core problem that binds my traumatic experience of therapy and the catastrophic treatment of my son, by mental health services. OK, my conclusions - start at the top level. Start with the awareness that something is wrong and the obvious answer - make a complaint! There is a problem! The outcome of a complaint process is to decide who has the most legitimate argument. And t...

As I have explained, my son did indeed manage to  escape from psychiatric services . But the harm done to his sense of identity, to how he understands himself because mental health treatment conforms to a medical model, and because there is shame associated with ‘diagnosis’... The harm done, remains one more hurdle for him to jump. It doesn’t take much imagination to feel how difficult it would be to regain confidence and trust enough in oneself, even the most mentally healthy of us, after life events have shaken the very foundations of our lives. Now imagine - how much harder with a ‘diagnosis’ and the memories of being sectioned, of being  treated  without one’s consent; the sound of doors locking, the muffled screaming, the atmosphere of anxiety and violence, and the drooling shuffling zombie walk of new-to-Risperidone patients. There is more, there is worse. In truth, psychiatric services are probably more than happy to see ungrateful people go and I was so, so ungrat...

This is how it was: [LINK] I think that what I wanted and needed most, when my son was panicking and hallucinating and the home visit team was sending him into a downward spiral, what I needed beyond all things - was to know that one day it would be OK. That one day he would be able to look back at the fear and pain and get some kind of overview, some distance from the power of it. Preferably without continuing with the Risperidone, Lorazepam, Zopiclone, Citalopram and Diazepam, Five years later and yes, it is OK. And no more R,L,Z,C and D.  How did that happen?  Well it happened despite my husband's best attempts to sabotage it - and the consequences of his attitude and actions remain as horrible, mouldering left overs. It happened because The Early Intervention team supported my son. There was no cajoling or threatening (Home visit Team - or rather the psychiatrist who literally led the home visit team specialised in bullying). They respected my son's wishes not to be medic...

OK, well, The Black Box blog   was a nice interlude! I'm being ironic .  I may have said this before - that I fell in love with my therapist?  And I tell the story of what happened here: LINK. Spoiler alert: Not a happy ending. But, it was an interesting experience, taught me lots. So, back home, back to the sense of my life as being me running rings around the moon, or ripples from a stone thrown into a pool, the image of the moon becomes rings that slowly, slowly calm back into a coherent picture. All in all it is OK, I've done good! I have done what I set out to do! In 2015 I picked up on an expression that passed over my son's face that gave me the heads-up that something was going very wrong, and I listened to that intuition. I followed the narrative to the coroners court and resolved to become the kind of therapist who isn't like 'your mom's friend'. I wanted to work with young men who are suicidal. I wanted to become someone who knows how to engage ...