[This is the second of a two-part post – Part 1 can be found here, and describes this thing that I have done, and my original reasons for doing so].

My therapist questioned me – wanting to knowing more, wanting me to understand more about why it was so important to me to get a copy of Jane (my ex-therapist’s) notes. And the more I thought about it, the more my reasons for asking for Jane’s notes seemed to be multi-layered, and more numerous than I had imaged. Months ago, I had only been aware of two; now, a number of other possibilities come to mind. The reasons that were most important to me then, are not the ones that are uppermost in my mind now. Perhaps because the reasons then, were concerned with preserving something; and now that it is ‘preserved’, it is more about discovering something.

The reasons that felt most powerful before, are very different to the ones that speak to me now that the notes are in my possession. But the latest ones are all linked, too. And, as before, they are reflected in more areas of my life than just my relationship with Jane. My therapist feels that all of this chimes with everything that’s been in the air between us over the last few months – issues of control, of fighting boundaries, and of pushing for reassurance.

It’s certainly true that I want to give myself time to decide what to do with the notes. I don’t want them to be destroyed by someone else, on someone else’s schedule. And so yes – I think it is important to me that I have control over this particular ending. I had no control over how or when things ended with Jane – neither when I left the service through which I saw her, nor when she decided to retire. If allowing myself to ‘grieve her’ was part of trying to have a ‘proper ending’, then perhaps so is this. It feels as though the notes would be far less important if our therapeutic relationship had been able to run its course. And maybe this is reminiscent of other relationships that haven’t run their course; other endings over which I had no control.

Now that I have the notes, this all feels more as though it is about me, than it is about Jane. It feels more about keeping me real, than keeping her real. The need for validation is a strong motivator – possibly the strongest motivator present right now. All those thoughts I still have about ‘making this up’, ‘being a fraud’, ‘bringing it upon myself’, ‘being overly dramatic’, ‘being attention seeking’- perhaps I can banish them by reading the notes. Perhaps then I will finally know that what is going on for me is real. Not just now, but for always. Because just as I am afraid that my memories of Jane will become insubstantial, I’m also afraid that my memories of what I am going through, will feel unreal in ten or twenty years’ time. It feels as though I need to read Jane’s notes to validate my experience; to make it count, now and in the future.

But this is also a chance not just for validation, but to really see myself through someone else’s eyes. Moreover, the eyes of someone who really ‘saw’ me, understood me, and accepted me. What would that be like? In some ways, it won’t be the same as having that knowledge communicated through relationship; in other ways, I feel as though it could be a more direct communication. Jane’s words, about Jane’s observations, about me. It feels irresistible – utterly so. As I was rapidly flicking through the pages before I reluctantly put the notes away, I caught sight of the odd word and sentence, though I was trying hard not to actually read them. I spotted the words ‘very low’ and ‘suicidal’. And that reminded me that the last time my therapist and I talked about suicide, she asked whether I felt that I was taken seriously, and I said ‘no’. I meant to come back to it – I had wanted to since the Christmas break – but something else took over, and the matter still doesn’t feel resolved. I find it hard even to take my own suicidal ideation seriously; the critical voice in my head tells me that if I was really suicidal, I would try to do something about it. But what if Jane’s notes show that she took it seriously? How would that feel? I want to know how it feels.

After I flicked quickly through the notes I turned to the last page – our ending. I tried not to read it, but the signature and the date at the bottom of the page caught my eye, as did Jane’s last sentence: “I thanked her for her card and her thoughtfulness”. If I read nothing else, that one sentence will have made the whole experience worthwhile. When I try to think of positive things that I heard about myself growing up, they mainly centre around intellectual capability and my figure (not looks in general, but specifically the shape of my body). There may well have been other positive adjectives sent my way, but what I tend to remember are things like: ‘following others like a sheep’; ‘being thoughtless’; ‘thinking only of myself’; ‘being hard and cold’. I know that some of those ‘accusations’ came because of the way I refused to show emotion to my parents and acted in a way that protected myself from their intrusion, and in that sense they feel ‘justified’. But I wish so much that I had a bank of memories and words that painted me in a different light, and one that I would rather be seen in. I can’t say a ‘truer’ light – because it feels as though the truth of it depends on someone else seeing it. That is why it feels so important to grab this opportunity to see myself through Jane’s eyes – what other sentences could be found in those notes, to give me a better sense of who I am?

But if this is a unique opportunity to see myself through Jane’s eyes, it is also a unique opportunity to see behind her own. I don’t expect the notes to tell me much about her as a person – but they may give me a window into her thoughts during our sessions. Is this not the fantasy of many a therapy client? Sometimes, when silences go on a little too long, and I am lost inside the thoughts inside my head, my therapist asks me ‘What are you thinking?’. Sometimes, I am brave enough to ask that question of her. Sometimes, she answers it. Often, she smiles; and the thoughts that I saw pass behind the smile are left unspoken, and I am left to wonder. I never knew Jane long enough to feel that I could ask her what she was thinking; or even to think of asking her what she was thinking. But perhaps the notes would give me a glimpse of a tiny minority of those thoughts.

I suspect this is what my therapist meant by saying that this chimes with what has been in the air between us. The frustration of not knowing; of not touching; of feeling excluded; of feeling distant; of not being directly reassured. The frustration of boundaries and of things that I can never have. This comes up so often in my therapy that I am afraid that you, and I – and possibly she – might become rather bored of it soon. Bored and frustrated; but this is all clearly not resolved. Clearly this keeps coming round and around because it will take time and effort, and more time and more effort, to resolve.

My therapist once wrote in an email that when it comes to therapy, ‘there are no shortcuts’. Although I no longer fear the contents of Jane’s notes in the way that I did before, I am afraid that by reading them, I would be attempting to take some sort of a shortcut. I am afraid that it might somehow be undermining to my current therapy. And I don’t want to miss the opportunity to grow, or to learn a vital lesson. Given the innumerable helpful and wonderful conversations I have had with my therapist both in person and over email, I worry about why I should imagine that Jane’s words will have a particular power to validate and affirm? Perhaps the answer is that my relationship with Jane is frozen in time – and aspects of it, at least, are impervious to change. Her opinion of me is fixed – and therefore her potential validation of me, is ongoing. Though there are many occasions on which I feel powerfully validated and cared for by my therapist, my fear of having an impact upon her and on her caring, and changing it by something I do, is always there in the background.

My therapist questioned me – but what am I to do? Where will this new understanding, lead me? I want to end by copying here a comment on Part 1 of this post by ‘Reflections of a Mindful Heart and Soul‘ that I was very moved and grateful to receive. The comment struck me for several reasons: because of its thoughtfulness, its wisdom, its experience, and because it contained so many of the points that I had written about (here, in Part 2) but had not yet published. She had seen more reasons for this thing that I have done, than I had ‘spoken’ about – she had even seen more than I had thought about.

It is almost Easter – and Easter is an important anniversary for me. It is the time when Jane told me that she would be retiring and so the hope that I had been clinging on to, that I would return to therapy with her, became an impossibility. That was the ‘final’ ending, even though I had stopped seeing her six months previously. Easter last year was also the time when I realised, for the first time, that grieving had turned to acceptance, and that even if it were possible to return to therapy with Jane, I would say not do so. Anniversaries can have a powerful impact upon us, even if we are not consciously aware of them, and the comment by ‘Reflections of a Mindful Heart and Soul‘, reminded me of that. A number of you have told me that you are considering doing something similar to this thing that I have done; this comment has given me pause for thought, and I hope it is helpful for you too – I hope its author does not mind me sharing it here:

“I think people are triggered by anniversaries. Connections are important for all of us. It may be the fear of being abandoned, left, or forgotten, is still a part of you wanting to hold on to, instead of learning to let go. Sometimes it entails wanting what we can’t have, and sometimes it’s about trying to fix things you wanted to end differently.

What is true, whether we like it or not, is relationships change. Who we are, and who we are becoming, changes. What is important is discovering why you now have a dialectical dilemma and how are you going to effectively deal with it. Even more important is asking yourself why it is happening now, what do I want to be the outcome, and is that realistic or more hurtful in the end? Perhaps another question may be: Am I fighting acceptance of what is? If the search is to find out whether or not you were special, what was real or not in the therapeutic relationship, the notes may not tell you that. Notes and what is put down is different for everyone. Mostly they reflect diagnoses, a treatment plan, a list of goals and objectives, and whether or not they are being met or what obstacles are getting in the way of progress and how to address them and help you effectively cope with them. You risk disappointment, misunderstandings, and it may create more problems than solving them. Jane will not be able, probably, to explain, interpret what you find. That would leave you in another dilemma. If you had a good relationship, remember the good memories. When it is all said and done, what we truly remember years later is the essence of someone and that is what matters. When you are old, good memories do come back on their own when you least expect them too. The task at hand is learning acceptance, not fighting it, and learning to let go of what was and cherish that as well as moving into the present, day by day and to keep learning and growing. It is never easy. Nature teaches us this is the pattern- the seasons come and they go. That doesn’t mean there has to be forgetting. It just means there is only so much we can deal with effectively in the present or enjoy.”