Conflict

Is the relationship asking to deepen, the pastor said from her pulpit at the Universalist Unitarian church.

I didn’t catch much more of the service because I was drowning in old religious trauma.

Dissociated.

Disoriented.

Collapsed.

Openly crying.

Eyes closed.

Tears streaming down my face.

I did not even realize that I had childhood religious trauma.

But there it was, on full display, in this church in Oakland that my ex had taken me to.

I had a lot of reservations about going and I can articulate many of them, but that if for another time.

The reason I am thinking of this particular sentence is that I have adopted it as an intervention tool with couples who are in conflict but afraid of talking about it.

Also, Esther Perel, who I have trained with, talks a great deal about how conflict avoidant we are as a society and the harm that it does to us.

I used the phrase tonight with a couple in deep conflict and extreme fear of walking into it.

And.

Lo.

There was a repair.

I am so grateful for getting to be a therapist.

I watched the couple move from being at either end of the couch at the beginning of the session to being tearfully in each others’ arms by the end of session.

There were a lot more interventions aside from that one, but that’s where it started, by walking into the conflict instead of avoiding it.

I am a very good therapist.

I am not always a very good partner.

But I am also human.

It is so very easy to see it from the other side of the room, or couch, if you may.

I couldn’t see it so clearly with my ex.

It hurts that I couldn’t always get out of my own painful past and shame with him in our dynamic.

My therapist was like, you got shamed, you shamed him, you both kept trying to talk to the other person and you only kept triggering each other.

I wish I had been able to pause.

God.

I wish I had.

But if wishes were horses beggars would ride.

And I would have a stable full of prancing ponies right about now.

It’s been such a wild ride.

Not comfortable.

Uncomfortable as fuck.

But I’m still on the ride.

Today’s ride is more about anger than it is about tears.

Yesterday I had my first, almost, so close, nearly, day without crying.

I made it to bed.

I knelt down, said grace, prayed for direction and guidance and had a picture of my ex float up behind my eyes that nearly floored me.

I was not expecting it and the tears came immediately.

Well, god damn it.

I thought I was going to make it through one day without crying.

But no.

I found myself today not so much sad but mad.

Mad at him for taking down his relationship status on Facebook before talking to me, days before talking to me, days of ugly anticipation.

Mad at him for being at his art studio in Potrero Hill, being in San Francisco when he lives across the Bay, the Saturday prior to this last, when he broke up with me in the evening, from Oakland.

Dude.

Why?

What the fucking hell?

Come over to my house.

Why am I seeing you post on Instagram about being at the studio and you won’t get in your car, drive over to my house, see me in person and do the deal face to face.

I suppose I will never know why.

Why is not a spiritual question.

But fuck, it rankled.

Rankled is not the right word.

It was like getting knifed in the heart.

It hurt so badly to see that.

I envisioned driving my car over and demanding, what the fuck?

Talk to me please.

Please, baby, please talk to me.

But I had never been over to his studio, I just know it’s in Potrero Hill, oh, I have a sneaking suspicion I could figure it out, there are only so many, but I’m not a fucking stalker.

I felt a moment of anger tonight too, saying those words to the couple in distress in front of me without having had the oppportuinity to deepen the relationship with him.

Fight for the relationship.

He gets the right to do whatever he wants, he decided to withdraw, he has his reasons.

“I don’t have time for you.”

But you have time to post to Instagram.

ARGHHHHHHH.

Anyway.

The anger is also a path forward, a light, a fire under my fucking ass.

I have been writing.

I have been reaching out.

And I have had people reach out to me over and over and over again.

Unexpectedly.

People I had no clue were concerned.

Messages on Instagram, Facebook, text messages, phone calls.

One friend even sent me a meme today via text that he made from my blog including a fake algorithm of me being offered “singles over 70” ads.

Motherfucker I am only 51.

And I dance like I’m 35.

Anyway.

I feel seen and loved.

Not necessarily loved by the man I want to love me.

Hmmm.

That’s not fair.

He did love me.

He just doesn’t have the time to commit to the relationship that it needs.

I think it’s the last that is unfair.

(If life was fair I would be dead)

He didn’t try.

(And maybe that’s unfair too, he just didn’t try with me in the way I wanted)

And that fucking hurts and makes me angry too.

I am worth the time.

Anyway.

I can’t convince him, or I would have already.

I have pretty much left him alone.

I will admit I have continued to leave him unblocked on Gmail, some small hopes that he will reach out and work towards repair, but the longer there is silence the more smashed that fantasy becomes.

One fantasy that has finally left is him being on my bed when I get home from the office.

He still has my keys.

I wonder if he is going to return them, I’ll come home one day with an anonymous envelope pushed through the mail slot, or if they’ve just been tossed in the recycling bin behind his house.

Enough repeated unlocking of the door to see my empty apartment, well, the cats are here, but empty of him, has quashed that fantasy.

I unblocked him on social too.

Maybe he’ll reach out there, he’s comfortable on it, uses it a lot.

Maybe….

Staying off that shit though, I can’t imagine seeing his handsome face, it would hurt too much.

I know this because I did look momentarily to still see some pictures of the two of us on his social.

It broke me all over again.

And.

Gave me what I now think is false hope, if he’s still got photos of us on his page maybe there’s a chance.

Anyway.

I expect that will change and I don’t know that I can stand to see that.

I may still go back and block him on social to avoid that pain.

But so far, the blog has given me the platform to process and process and process.

And the anger, like I said a moment ago has fueled the fire.

It has also fueled the fire for other writing projects.

I finally went through the steps to secure the right photographer for my tattoo book project and I am so fucking excited for it.

I have mapped out things I need to do before I connect with the photographer who is coming up from Los Angeles to work with me.

I am beyond excited to collaborate.

He is someone I know from my earliest sobriety.

I love and admire his work.

I cannot wait.

We will be doing the photo shoot the third weekend in March.

In the meantime I will be formatting the book and integrating the photos I do like from the previous photographer I worked will.

I will also be doing as much freaking self-care as I can.

I have been busy breathing and staying connected to people.

Breathing is work, especially when the pain was so bad I couldn’t draw breath without folding over and collapsing.

I have shared and cried and breathed and went grocery shopping and done food prep and written volumes in my journal, I have gone out dancing and will go out again in a couple of weeks.

I am listening to music that has no affiliation with our relationship and dancing in my kitchen in the meantime.

Anger is a part of grief.

And I know that at some point it will fade.

It will soften and I will accept and move gently forward into whatever unknown landscape there is in front of me.

I will forgive myself and him.

I will not shame myself for being messy, most of the time, and I will do my therapy work—with my clients and with myself.

I have to say my therapist being away has been really hard, but I have not come completely unhinged because of the sweet love and support I have had from my community.

And the anger is a little less now too.

Thank God for writing.

It is saving my fucking life.

So much so.

Thank God for the words, which are their own reflection love for me.

My heart needed so to process.

Here, now, in this way, I will show up for myself.

And.

Give myself the time he could not give to me.

Out Of The Frying Pan

Into the fire.

Or intermediately into the fire?

I mean, I suppose the fire will be when I go to Burning Man, but wow.

It’s hot out there folks.

Today, my last day at the Noetic Institute up in Petaluma it hit 99 degrees.

Tomorrow, here in Glenn Ellen it will be 97 degrees.

That is warm.

At least for this San Franciscan lady.

I suppose it’s just preparation for the high temperatures I’m going to hit up in Black Rock City, so hey, might as well get used to it.

It, the heat, actually did not feel too bad for me.

And it wasn’t outside that I felt the most heat.

It was in the class room.

In the T-Group model that I spent a lot of time in today, all of today, and all of yesterday ( Friday and part of Thursday was well), and, dude, intense does not do it justice.

The good news is that I lived through it to tell the tale and I did not run, I did not hide.

Although, if I am honest, which I was not able to really sit down and do last night since I was still so thick in the heat of it, I did flee.

I, however, waited for the class to be done before I fled and I did not make a scene.

What I did not realize until I was almost in full-blown panic attack, was that I was having a panic attack.

I got myself to my dorm room and I swear I might have hyperventilated if I had stayed in my room.

I dashed out the dorm and tumbled down the steps.

I found a friend.

A dear.

Sweet.

Wonderful.

Amazing new friend.

And she walked with me to the dark of the hillside and let me spill it all out and have myself a good cry, and should you be wondering did I tell her about T-Group, no, I did not.

What happens in T-Group stays the fuck in T-Group.

I did however tell her about the flight or fight that came up for me, the deep shaming I experienced and the rush of anger that had preceded it.

I have not been that angry in so long I was not able to name the emotion for a moment.

I think it’s been a couple of years since I have experienced the level of anger that consumed me.

My skin got so hot I literally had and sustained a red flush on my chest and face for about 45 minutes, perhaps an hour.

I had so much adrenalin and so much blood coursing through my hands and chest and face, it was the most intense feeling and yes, that’s right, I got to have it again today.

But.

Not as bad.

And no panic attack this time.

The T-Group model, I believe, is meant to elicit an emotional response but what I saw was historical for me and I was triggered, and I hate, hate, hate that word, but that is what happened and I haven’t been triggered so hard before.

Ever.

I feel, in hindsight that it was happening, this build up, for a while, and I wasn’t able to name it.

I can name so many emotions, I have a veritable language bouquet of emotive feeling words that I can use and use them I do.

But anger?

I had no idea that it would take that much to get me to feel it, no, that’s not correct, I was getting signals from my body, but I chose to ignore them because I didn’t think they were such a big deal.

The small irritations that happened.

Annoyance that built and built and built and at some point boiled over.

What I learned was that I have to speak my mind much faster than what I think I do.

I have to express and lay a boundary–that’s a big part of the nature of the groups–way before I feel like I do.

I kept brushing it aside, the annoyance, the gnat of a feeling, go away, you’re not worth it.

And every time I ignored that feeling, out of fear of confrontation, which is another point of the T-Group-not to avoid conflict but to learn how to navigate through it– because of that fear I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control or navigate, it got bigger.

Doing the opposite of what the model was trying to teach me to do.

Until the explosion last night.

Which wasn’t seen by anyone other than my dear friend.

I suspect that people in my group were aware that I was really uncomfortable with the emotion and that I was straining to contain it, but no one knew the extent and what do we not do outside of the T-Group?

Process.

It all has to be done in the container the model provides.

So.

It erupted and there I was exhausted, wrung, blown open and I hadn’t even gone in for the night, and I still had to pack my bags–we had to have all of our things out of the dormitories by 9 a.m. when classes started.

I had originally thought, oh, if check out is at 9 a.m. then the classes end on Saturday.

Boy.

Was I wrong.

Classes were held today.

Granted they were truncated, for which I am so grateful, but we still had them all day long and our breaks for meals were cut into to accommodate the new schedule.

After breakfast.

Right to T-Group.

And there it was the trepidation, the fear, the anxiety.

I kept walking through it, I kept showing up for my group and I am so grateful I did.

But yes, in the afternoon the issue did come to a head and I was able to address it.

With a gallon of tears and the second hottest body temp of my experience–yesterday’s anger reaction prior to the panic attack being the hottest.

I got it out.

The conflict was resolved.

But.

I soaked through my shirt with sweat.

In an air-conditioned room.

I still can’t believe that happened.

And.

Yes.

I learned.

OH DID I LEARN.

Grateful for the learning lesson, grateful to be pushed so hard, grateful to also be held so securely and safely with my facilitator who help me to do the work without doing it for me.

I learned.

Teachability, what a gift.

I also got some fantastic feedback and a deep love and gratitude for the process.

Did I like it?

Hell fucking no.

Did I have the courage to walk through the fear and do the learning anyway?

Yes.

And just for that I know that I am going to be an amazing psycho-analyst.

I really am.

I still have so much to learn and do.

Oh Jesus, sweet baby Jesus, in the manager.

Do I have work to do.

Oh man, I have some papers to write and reading to do.

But.

I am well established.

I am on my way.

I am in it.

I through the fire.

It was hot.

I have been made the stronger for the forging.

And.

The steel was worthy of the flame.