(Written in January 2010)
\nI\u2019ve decided to post this entire story, hoping it will help people understand how to really be helpful to a challenged friend.\u00a0 It illustrates the danger of well-meaning people who have their own agenda, and aren\u2019t really paying attention to the person they are trying to help.\u00a0 At the time this happened, the idea that I was getting too much nurturing and not being challenged, was unbelievably ridiculous.\u00a0 I was emotionally and psychologically an infant who had been badly hurt.\u00a0 I was totally challenged just surviving the day. The danger of suicide was real.\u00a0 Notice that it took two therapists and two knowledgeable friends to help me out of it.<\/p>\n
Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I\u2019m feeling pretty bummed out.\u00a0 I asked Paula for help \u2014 I really need to do some grief work \u2014 but she took it upon herself to tell me that I should get out of this house that\u2019s full of depression energy, and go see people, etc etc.\u00a0 When I tried to tell her what I needed she kept making me wrong.\u00a0 At the moment I just want to die.\u00a0 I just can\u2019t do whatever it is I\u2019m supposed to be doing.\u00a0 Please help me. next day: third day: I had a good talk with Elizabeth.\u00a0 Can\u2019t remember now what we talked about.\u00a0 I did tell her about Paula and she validated my distress, and I read her the passage from my journal about the work with Ingrid<\/a>.\u00a0 She said my voice changed, got fuller.\u00a0 It was fun to get in touch with that anger. There is a book called \u201cHow to be a Help Instead of a Nuisance<\/a>\u201d by Karen Kissel Wegela, which I highly recommend.\u00a0 It talks about the importance of really being aware of what\u2019s going on for you. In a nutshell: \u201cWe want to remove suffering when we see it, but our desire to remove suffering is mixed up with our desire to be comfortable and not bothered by someone else\u2019s pain.\u201d p80\u00a0 This is exactly what was happening for Paula when she was trying to help me.\u00a0 It just got too uncomfortable being around my pain, she needed me to get better faster, so she made me wrong for being in pain.\u00a0 Because I was in a baby state, I had no adult resources to deal with what was happening, my only resource was to want to cease to exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Written in January 2010) I\u2019ve decided to post this entire story, hoping it will help people understand how to really be helpful to a challenged friend.\u00a0 It illustrates the danger of well-meaning people who have their own agenda, and aren\u2019t … Continue reading
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Dear Jenny, it\u2019s really unfortunate that Paula chose to do that.\u00a0 You were right about needing to do grief work and she was not helpful at all.\u00a0 That\u2019s very painful when you are still having to work at reaching out for help.\u00a0 Of course an experience like that will make you feel like not trying again.\u00a0 But the truth is that you need more help than you currently have.\u00a0 And you do need to keep reaching out.\u00a0 Call Beverly Decker and invite yourself for lunch.\u00a0 Make some choices.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWoke up feeling bummed out.\u00a0 I had asked Paula to help me by listening to me read.\u00a0 But she arrived with an agenda \u2014 she\u2019d decided I was getting too much nurturing and not being challenged.\u00a0 So she started in saying why did I stay in this depressed house and not get out & be with people.\u00a0 Well, that might make sense if I\u2019d been in the house for a month, but I had been out quite a bit, twice to Neskaya recently.\u00a0 When I tried to explain what I needed and what worked for me, she made everything I said wrong.\u00a0 Her attacks were actually quite stupid, sort of generic, didn\u2019t really address what I had just said, or perhaps intentionally misunderstood, because she\u2019d also shift the ground.\u00a0 I got angry and she was delighted, but in fact it wasn\u2019t the kind of anger that helps.\u00a0 I wish I\u2019d thought to ask her if she\u2019d be willing to tell me what she heard me say.\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to play that game again.\u00a0 I realize I was vulnerable because there was a recent time when she did listen to me read from Resource and validated what I said and I came out feeling much better.
\nFortunately I had a telephone appointment with Karen.\u00a0 I told her what had happened, and she validated my side of it.\u00a0 Then I read some pieces out of resource and cried and she validated me.\u00a0 Later I called Beverly and had a similar conversation.\u00a0 I think Karen and Beverly helped me from going way down into the pit, but the rest of the day was tough.\u00a0 The thought \u201cI really don\u2019t want to live much longer\u201d went through my head a number of times.<\/p>\n
\nWoke scared.\u00a0 What Paula did really devastated me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been wanting to die a lot.<\/p>\n
\nThe session with Caryn was very painful.\u00a0 I was feeling frustrated and discouraged.\u00a0 I cried a lot, and wanted to smash things, I hit my leg with my fist, I wanted to smash my head against the wall and feel the bone break.\u00a0 Caryn kept telling me to slow down, to titrate the energy.\u00a0 She stayed with me and kept a hand on me so I\u2019d know I wasn\u2019t alone. At one point, when I was still angry, I wanted to kill Paula.\u00a0 Caryn said that my \u201cwhole being\u201d had resisted Paula\u2019s invalidation.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I could feel that \u201cwhole being\u201d reconstituting itself.\u00a0 She said just as we build the resource incrementally, so we rebuild the structure of the self after such devastation. I finally wanted to hide so I curled up on the floor and held the cushion in front of me.\u00a0 Then I was finally able to relax, and everything shifted.\u00a0 My body got softer.\u00a0\u00a0 I spent the last half hour on the table.\u00a0 I could feel a shift in my feet and Caryn said the whole body expands and contracts.
\nThis very painful session with Caryn at least turned it around.\u00a0 I was feeling better when I left, but by the time I got home I was wanting to die again.
\nFortunately, Lynelle came in late in the evening to tell me why what Paula did was so damaging.\u00a0 She said because of that time when Paula stayed here and cooked for me, she was very much in a mothering role, so she has a mother\u2019s power in my psyche.\u00a0 So when she invalidates me like that, the result is devastating.\u00a0 No wonder I was wanting to die.\u00a0 Lynelle pointing this out helped enormously.\u00a0 I stopped wanting to die and have shifted to an adult comforting a frightened \u2014 actually traumatized \u2014 baby.<\/p>\n