(Written in April 2009)
Intense session with Caryn. I described my sense of total despair at the beginning. Caryn suggested sitting with it, being curious about it. My body felt relaxed, flat, no energy. I think then some activation happened which started the process. Started with crying, followed my body to lie down and writhe, which became pounding & wanting to bang my head. Pounding became the gesture of wanting to push something along — I thought of my rope of grief and misery — there was also a sense of wanting to vomit, get something out of me. Caryn asked where in my body did I not feel the misery. I said in my arms & legs. She said to stay with that for a while. Then Caryn said she had a long piece of black cloth, and went to get it. I stuffed it in my front, pulling the end out of the neck. I pulled it out slowly with that same gesture of pushing along the seaweed rope. I pushed it all out and flung it away from me into a heap on the floor. Caryn asked me to talk to it, so I did. More effectively than an earlier time — I see I had done that from the head because I thought I “ought” to, because of what Barbara said and intellectually knowing I must be angry… This time the anger came from the body, that’s what counts, that’s what works. So I told mother she was a nasty woman, that she’d wrecked my life by leaving me alone too long. I talked about the nasty things she said to me. All I could feel coming from the black lump was denial so I said “Go ahead and drink. You don’t what to know what’s happening, you don’t want to hear my pain.” Finally I felt finished. Caryn and I talked a little — maybe her trip to Wales and Greece. I thought of some good times with Mom: the birthday party and small transparent plastic animals, bringing out the Christmas decorations, going to the theater — Playhouse in the Park and Shakespeare at Litchfield. I should probably add when she gave me the loom, and the Russian box, and a good visit in Portland, perhaps one in Brunswick, and a good time with her after Dad’s death when she wasn’t drinking. A pretty pitiful harvest for one of the most important relationships in my life.
Left out a piece. After pushing out the cloth, my hands wanted to claw and tear so Caryn brought a piece of paper and I tore most of it to bits. I left a few big pieces, suddenly realizing I was done and didn’t have to keep doing it just because the amount of paper wasn’t finished. I threw the pieces up in the air, and lay down in the middle of them and waved my arms & legs. Then I was tired and Caryn brought a cube that I could rest my legs on. Then I pushed the cube away and Caryn held it and turned it so I could both keep contact and have the satisfying feeling of pushing it away. At the end, lying in the middle of the torn paper with my knees on the cube, she said it was new for me to be lying flat in a symmetrical pose. Also, she asked me what it was like to have got rid of all that stuff. I said I felt hollow in the middle and protective of that space.
The “seaweed rope” came from a gesture in an earlier session, and became a piece of woven scraps of dark cloth, with white strips saying names of people who had abandoned me, and cruel things that Mom said to me. Eventually, I plan to use it as part of a ritual.
Caryn McHose does Somatic Experiencing in Holderness, NH See her website