Some of the people I admire most in the mental health field are those who have the courage and vulnerability to share that they came to the therapy space through their own healing journey. Frank Anderson, Gabor Mate, Brene Brown, Peter Levine.
So I thought that would be good place for me to start.
I had what I would have said was a great life. I had a loving family, a beautiful group of friends, a good education and a great career that I loved - working with kids. Aside from a few health issues (I’ll return to these in later posts) I had no major life set backs or traumas. After travel and a few teaching jobs I found my dream job working in a hospice for children and I loved every minute of the privilege of spending time with these amazing families. Life felt like it was on track.
In my mid thirties - later than I would have liked but amazing all the same - I had my first child. And after a brief (but intense) experience of post natal depression (which again is for another time) my life felt completely full … being a mum seemed to complete me.
After a year and a half we decided to try for a second child. Given how easy it had been the first time we had no concept or insight that falling pregnant could be so hard or heartbreaking. After almost two years of just trying and hoping we started IVF. I won’t document the entire gruelling journey here - if you’ve done it you’ll know it and I’m keen to explore that in future posts. The short version is that I did 10 rounds of IVF, and over the six years of trying for a second child I lost five pregnancies.
Through a combination of tenacity, luck and incredible specialists who went the extra mile I had my miracle second baby 6 years later. I want to emphasise here that I write this from a place of knowing the priviledge of this situation - not only in my getting the outcome I was hoping for, but also in being able to afford specialised medical care. During this time I had had some therapy (not all good) and overall I found that space where I felt seen and heard in all my pain, suffering, and distress essential to getting me through.
After this I of course thought I that I had done my time and things would now be wonderful. However as many of you know if you’re reading a therapist blog - that isn’t how life works and when my little one was two my partner had an affair and left our 19 year relationship.
I knew our relationship had not been in a good place, and the infertility journey certainly only added to what was already a rocky foundation. But I had made an assumption that many couples seemed discontented or unhappy and I cared deeply about staying in a nuclear family, appearing to be normal and being in the daily grind. Despite my pleas we try to do the work and reconcile my ex ultimately left. The dismantling of our family left me completely blind sighted and broken - while having to care for two very fragile kids who suddenly understood how unsafe the world can be.
This started my journey of awakening, of coming back to myself. I started long term therapy and really reflected on how I had ended up in this place. While it was easy to blame my ex for everything (and there was certainly a time when I did and times when I return to this place), I knew that fundamentally I had to look at what I had contributed to ending up here.
Why had I chosen and stayed with a person who wouldn’t engage in difficult conversations or sit with big feelings?
Why I had stayed with someone when I had felt so utterly alone and unsupported in my lowest times?
Why had I not even really noticed how alone I felt in our relationship and how bad things really had gotten?
Why when he continued to repeatedly lie did I want him to stay regardless?
This work of understand myself better has taught me so many things - about how my perfect life was perhaps not as perfect as I kept wanting to convince myself it was … about stories behaviours I learnt as a child which I had integrated so strongly into me I wasn’t aware of them … about how disembodied I had become … about how I had been managing discomfort and suffering with shopping and food …
The work has been hard …
But the work has been worth it …
I’d love to walk some of the way with you on your journey to wellbeing …
Janet x
Comments