I don't even know what the hell truth is. I feel like I've had my legs chopped off, to fit me in the box of your diagnosis. Because it was hard enough all those years on my own, but when people say they're going to help and all they do is take from you and tell your story before you've had a chance to find it, tell you to be afraid and sad and angry and ashamed, when the whole battle is to NOT be those things...NOT be consumed by them...

The whole thing is a myth - bullsh*t. There are no helpers and no safe places, not for people like me.

I want to be dead.

You ask me why the balance wasn't working any more. You've probably got your own theory, but I think it was because it was only temporary, and I've had to change a lot. Don't ever think I haven't been fighting all this time, because I have and I've been fighting alone when you could have been helping. We've tried everything - tried to share our strength with you, our dreaming; tried to tell you what you wanted; cried out with flames and knives and pain; written letter after letter from the depths of our heart and soul - and you hear nothing. YOU HEAR NOTHING but your own words, your thoughts, all imposed on who I am and diminishing me and forcing me to be what I am not and making my words into lies.

You know, I just don't know what I can say - maybe if I actually do give up - I mean, the only reason I've fought till now is because I thought it could get better. But there goes that idea.

(a more rational part of me takes over at this point, and fights back, asking for the following changes in our therapy process. This was the part of the letter that Dr X actually got to read).

1) Sometimes things hurt me here and now. My life hasn't stopped, waiting for me to sort things out. You want to talk about my childhood, but I have had to face every kind of emotional abuse, neglect, deprivation, stigmatisation just in the last four years. From you and people like you. Nothing to do with my parents or anyone else. That stuff is in a safe place. It can wait.

2) Too often we end up in places in therapy where I don't want to be - but because i've gone along, not seeing it coming, I don't feel like I can just stop. So I shut down. I need to have the process explained to me properly, so I can see where we're going and say if that's where I need or want to go.

3) I need to have the rules explained. Properly. All the boundaries, what your role is, what you expect of me...I don't mind expectations, so long as I know what they are.

4) Spiritual side of things is really important - the imagery/dreamy/foresty stuff that is connected to spiritual meaning in our lives. Don't brush over these things - don't interpret them your way or demand an instant explanation. They are often complete in themselves, or have a parallel that needs to be revealed in OUR time. "Metaphor" is sometimes a bigger risk than talking in the concrete, because that dreaming side is what keeps us alive. Handle with care.

5) There is a lot of confusion over what has been said/shared - the story has come through so broken that it doesn't really tell anything - we may need to go back over what has been said and especially what has been written - and fill in some of the blanks.

6) You are too quick to judge, even if you don't mean to. It doesn't help when you highlight the bad in my parents, or my weakness/vulnerability - because I have been strong sometimes, and they have been good too. If they were evil and I was their "victim" it would be easy to make sense of it all - but we're all just people who keep getting it wrong...

The happy ending is that my words were heard, and after four long years of being pushed from pillar to post in the mental health system, I am finally in a therapy relationship which can meet my needs....

A new reason to hope. The possibility of change.

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