We told him Robert has been in several times. He asked why. We talked about the various “triggers” that bring Robert out. We talked about identifying with the aggressor. He asked if maybe Robert trusted him. We talked about the trust horse necklace and how Lady said the words Austin and trust don’t really go together. He asked if we’d ever learn to trust again like the horse Griton did. No, there are too many slaughter house memories and too many kids in closets, I said.
I asked him why he listens to us tell stories about the mother. Robert wonders if he enjoys them. We asked him if he does. “How do we know you don’t have some kid at home locked away in a closet that you hurt?” I told him that we wonder if he, like the mother, gets off on this stuff. The mother talked all the time about what she’d done to us because she enjoyed the details of it. I asked him if he enjoyed the details. He wanted to know if it would be out of the ordinary for him to simply want me to have a better quality of life. He asked if I thought he’s just trying to pull one over on me. Sometimes I think that but if I always thought it I wouldn’t come back I said. I told him the mother looked people in the eye everyday as if she wasn’t some sort of monster. Nobody suspected she tortured her children. He said she seemed to go from one extreme to the next with no middle ground. Yes, I said, but one extreme allowed her to enjoy the other. She thought it was great that people believed her to be a good mom. She asked me to nominate her for mother of the year. She asked us to call her supermom in public. Being supermom in public let her enjoy the other extreme much more I said. I asked, how on earth do we know he doesn’t do the same thing, look me in the eye twice a week as if he doesn’t have some kid locked away that he tortures on a whim. He lost us from there cause it was flashback city. It was hard to even see him it was so foggy in there…in my head I mean. The fear was incredible. I was physically nauseous.
When I look at people I wonder who they’ve hurt. I wonder what their secrets are. I look for small clues that they might be a sadist. I try to toss that idea out of my head because most people aren’t. I know that but still I remember how convincing my mother was to the outside world. There’s a constant battle to see people as anything other than sadists looking for an opportunity to grab a victim. I suppose its reasonable that people are nice because they can be the same as people are vicious because they can be. One day I might be able to hold that thought without my heart sinking.
We talked about my personal connection to sunflowers, about Captain Crunch’s health (he has an ear infection but otherwise he’s fine) and about art work. Since I was dissociating so badly when I left I stumbled and nearly fell. Had it not been for a wall catching my face I would have been on the floor. A lady asked me if I was okay. I left only with a bruised ego. I was so embarrassed. I’m going to need to tell him that a few minutes before the session ends I have to get myself grounded enough to leave safely.
I walked Captain, ate dinner, watched TV, talked on the phone to a friend, talked to Lady on the phone and did a bit of artwork.
Therapy Notes October 31st, 2007
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