What happens when a therapist needs to stop at the services?
This weekend was the birthday of one of my closest friends. We and a couple of other friends drove down to Deal in Kent to enjoy some sea air and bubbles. This is a simple story and sometimes the simplest stories can have so many layers. And not just layers, but the simplest stories can represent something so vulnerable and intrinsic and exposing.
During this two-hour-plus drive, Geri* asked, what I’m sure any considerate driver would ask, “Would anyone like me to stop at the services?” It felt like time had slowed down, the other two women said they were okay and could wait.
Time seem to stop entirely as I noticed how my stomach had been grumbling for a bit already (probably as a result of the mini-saussicon last night) and I’d already been wondering if we’d make a toilet stop. I noticed my anxiety knocking, I noticed myself smile at my anxiety, a nod to the familiar feeling of fear at asking for my needs to be met. I noticed my face and body warm up as my vocal chords geared up to make their move: “I could do with stopping at the services”, I said. “Cool”, everyone else said, and then the conversation carried on from where we’d left off.
I noticed myself calm, the smiling part of me noticed for the scared part of me how the vibe in the car hadn’t changed, no one had got angry. Once we’d got to the service station, we all went to the loo - I wasn’t even the last one out and that was also an old fear of mine: a condition of worth, ‘I will only be acceptable if I don’t inconvenience anyone’. Maybe it was saussicon, maybe it was the drive, maybe it was being in the company of these brilliant women: I felt very alert and awake to the contradictory configurations that make up my whole organism. We strolled back in the sunshine to the car and made our way to Deal.
I cannot tell you how long I've struggled to voice my needs, to even know my needs and wants. Therapy training was an exercise in uncovering them and the funny part was uncovering something that felt like a need, which I later realised was in service of meeting someone else's needs. I have some wonderful examples of the people in my life meeting their needs not at the expense of others, and these examples, along with my own recent examples fuel the smiling part of me that notices and sees the scared part of me.
Not all the examples of me asking for my needs to be met end with me walking into the sunshine, however. Sometimes people will react in a way that fuels the fear: they get angry, they tell me I’m overreacting, I’m being too sensitive. You’ve probably heard this said too. Old Me would’ve nodded and acquiesced. More Recent Past Me would’ve bawled her eyes out. Even More Recent Past Me would’ve cried and said, “Let me cry, I’m trying to regulate so I can hear what you’re saying”. Today, it’s a little more complicated: if someone tells me they can’t meet my needs, for example, if Geri had said we’d passed the last service station, I would be able to feel the rejection and I would know it’s not her fault. If I’m sharing with someone that they’ve hurt me and could they stop hurting me, and they react with, “It’s just banter”, my heart shuts down and I walk away. I still feel the rejection and I will feel the grief of losing that relationship.
Today’s Me can still feel anxious; the difference is that I will still do it anyway. I will give that part of me a voice and a platform to stand on. I will pass her the mic rather than shut her down. I would add that this isn’t as clean and clear cut as it may read, however I will do my best to remain open to noticing how Tomorrow’s Me will react.
*Name changed to protect anonymity
Glossary of Terms
Condition of Worth: When we learn, usually in childhood, that certain feelings or parts of ourselves are only acceptable if they earn approval from others. Over time we start to hide or distort the parts that don't, in order to stay loved or accepted.
Configurations of Self: Different "parts" of a person, each made up of feelings, thoughts, and ways of behaving, that show up depending on the situation. We are not one fixed self but several overlapping versions of ourselves.
Organism: In this context, a person experienced as a whole: body, feelings, and thoughts together, rather than treated as just a diagnosis or a set of symptoms.
