Hope Architect

Everything we come to know in life isn’t everything we think it is…the gentle breeze that flows from one tree to another, the hand that touches another’s as they walk down a tree covered park, the memory of a kiss in a stadium of cheers as the world sneaks away… leaving only the two of you.

These past few months have been filled with some fucking hard times for me. I’ve worked through the intense process of grieving the loss of my weekly outlet of therapy.I started to have intense feelings for somebody only to have that person not be who I thought they were. I’ve had my Mum almost die, twice. It’s definitely been a challenging few months. 

With my therapist retiring and handing me the keys to the car (my mind) I’ve definitely had a lot of back & forth going on in my head. A shaking worry about whether I’m ready and if this is something that I can actually handle alone. At first this really scared me, but over time I’ve grasped a better understanding; of course I’m going to be concerned about whether or not I’ll be okay when I leave therapy. My mind is now doing exactly what therapy taught me to do; recognising when potential issues may arise and alerting me. The only difference is that I now have the tools to face it all head on. 

I have questions swimming through my mind at the moment as I write this story, but the most prominent is; ‘What  do I want for someone who is going through a hard time or considering therapy to get out of reading this?’

Hope, I want you to find hope. 

The pain I used to carry is no longer here, yours doesn’t need to be either. You are never alone in this fight. 

I remember it like it was yesterday, the year was 2014, I had just been told by the therapist I had seen for about a year that he was no longer going to be practicing and quite bluntly would be moving out of my life… for good. No major explanation, no slow ease off to allow my mind to be okay, just a complete cut off. For a 20-year-old kid who had no consistent attachment figures growing up, it was an absolute mind fuck. I remember getting home and collapsing on the floor of my apartment, completely uncertain as to why I was feeling so utterly overwhelmed. I couldn’t quite associate the abandonment with the pain, what was this feeling?

One thing I’ll always be thankful of that he did on that final day, was mention the name of someone, someone who was his supervisor that he said did a really good job. For the sake of privacy, I’m going to call this person Rose. About three days passed and I called Rose, a little bit shaken but very determined that I needed to keep going to therapy. I’d seen glimpses of change in this first stint of therapy, I felt that taking the risk of being abandoned again far outweighed not resolving what was going on in my mind. 

Have you ever been in a position where you were really unsettled by the idea of trying something that had ended so miserably the first time? Taking that leap of faith to do it again was exactly how I felt at this moment, I knew I had to try again. I was determined to give this everything I had, despite the fear of abandonment. 

The first session I ever had with Rose was hard, I can’t really remember all of it, but I remember the feeling of not being able to trust anyone, let alone someone new. How did I know that she wasn’t going to leave me as well? How on earth am I going to be able to stop thinking about wanting to go back to my old therapist, who abandoned me like it was the simplest thing he ever did? How do I know she wouldn’t do exactly the same thing? 

My favourite part about writing this story is to tell you that she never did. She did the opposite; she gave me the tools to build a life that, statistically speaking, I shouldn’t have had. At the age of 3 I was left by my Mum at a hospital in the outskirts of Brisbane (the story: many faces of abandonment covers this), the trauma of this was something I I wasn’t aware of until the early stages of my adult life. To be able to trust someone the way I do with Rose meant that my life moved from lingering thoughts of suicide, severe self hatred and endless amounts of shame into an internal world of love, compassion and endless support toward myself. 

In the seven years of therapeutic work I did with Rose, so much happened. If I think about the penultimate moments in the time there are three I remember most fondly.

The first was when I began to realise that the emotional pain I would feel going throughout my body, which would result in me dissociating, was trauma. Trauma buried deep within my body. I grew up never having a name for this, let alone an understanding. The mind is a wonderful thing, I had a part of me enable itself to essentially become my ‘protector’ and allow me to disconnect from the pain buried beneath me by taking me out. I remember the very first time I connected to the memories of myself as a little three-year-old boy being abandoned by his Mum. I remember walking over to him, picking him up and letting him know that he’s never going to be alone again. I remember the power of that moment, the realisation that the pain I used to run from was just memories my inner child was holding onto. I remember a lightbulb going off in my head: what if all of my pain is just younger versions of myself who need me? I was right. 

The second was the hardest break up I have ever been through. The loss of someone who had been there since the first time I entered therapy, someone who I had made my life very entwined with. This took years of work… I mean bloody years! If you want to know more, read this story: the love inside of you. I covered the most ground during this process and really found myself; in the darkest of places I finally found the light that I was looking for. I held onto some really strong beliefs and put everything I had into breaking them. For the first time in my life I was giving absolutely everything I had to help myself. Even though it didn’t feel like it was working, it was. 

The third, was when I unravelled most of my mind and met myself. My mind felt like a tangled mess until I was around twenty-four years old, it never appeared that way on the outside to those that didn’t really know me, but for those that did, you knew. There wasn’t one moment that defined this, there were lots, but that memory of walking up to that 3-year-old as the adult version of myself in the hospital and picking him up was the first time I felt like me. I remember thinking, who is this person that just waltzed into this scene, knew exactly what to say to the little part of me whilst having the confidence & strength to do whatever I needed to do to make sure that little me was okay. This was the first of many memories I would engage with this energy, energy I would come to learn was just me. Something that couldn’t be broken. For the first time in my life, my mind was no longer in control of me, I was the one guiding it. 

If I think about the first therapy session I ever had with Rose and compare it to the second last one I had today, it’s quite the contrast. Years ago, I’d sit there and stare numbingly into space, unable to escape my thoughts, unable to move past the obsessive thinking I had going on. I thought I was going to be stuck with that feeling all of my life. I had friendships that weren’t really close, no one really knew who I was (How could they – I didn’t even know myself). Making friendships is difficult when you are unable to trust your own feelings towards others, it’s like trying to fight fire with fuel. Internally I just wasn’t able to let anyone in. I remember just how kind Rose was, she could see just how much pain I was in. I didn’t know it at the time but that’s why I never stopped coming back, no matter how hard it was. I knew I had someone I could trust from that first day. 

Today, we reflected on how much has changed since we started, how I knowingly choose to take care of myself, and the fact that my thoughts are well and truly under the guidance of me. I’ve grown a wonderful friendship group (my badass support circle) who know me and my mess quite well, and I’ve built a career through pure grit and determination. I have let go of things that no longer served me; be it people, jobs or thoughts that I just didn’t feel were part of my story anymore. Something else I realised, through reflection, was just how much I love being alone. If I look back five or six years ago the thought of having to listen to my thoughts scared the fuck out of me. Now I actively work toward having alone time. It’s a time where I can listen to my thoughts and work out what’s going on for me. Alone time is where I find my peace now. Words I thought I’d never write. 

I close this story with a goodbye to my therapeutic relationship with Rose and my goodbye to therapy. 

The kid who walked into your door all those years ago had absolutely no idea that he had stepped into the room of such a wonderful human being. He had no idea that his life was going to change. That he would have to put in a ton of work but no matter how hard things got he would always be able to unpack it with you. I remember when I told you I couldn’t really afford to come to therapy let alone do more when you mentioned to me that I needed to do two sessions a week and you told me ”we can do the two sessions, I’ll just charge you for one”. I remember the lightbulb going off in my head that you really care about me.

 I remember coming in, sitting down on your couch after getting back from New Zealand in 2016 and confessing to you that I had cheated on my then partner. I remember your eyes, they were just full of compassion. You knew the whole time that behind all of that pain and the mistakes I made, was someone who would be willing to go on the journey to change themselves. To be the best version of themselves.

I couldn’t have done any of this without you, no matter how much you detest that, you recalibrated my view on the entire world. You gave me someone that I could trust, you re-built the structure in my life that I never got to have. I don’t believe in god, but something in the world made sure you came my way so that you could teach me the skills to put myself back together and for that I will always be thankful. The life I build as I move forward now is because of the love and care that you showed towards me all throughout our time together. I’ll carry forward for the rest of my life the skills I have now, the compassion I have for myself and for others, and most of all the love I have for absolutely everything. These are the gifts that you gave me, the gifts of therapy.