Author: Mary Lennox

You Are Not Alone

On By Mary LennoxIn Loss, Love, Time, YogaLeave a comment

(or This One Time, At Summer Camp…)

Twice a week, just after lunch, you can usually find me downstairs in the fitness center where I work, suiting up for yoga class.  We are very lucky that we have two wonderful yoga teachers, exceptional in their own right and not just by traveling corporate yoga teacher standards.  We have not had nearly such good luck with the substitutes, though.  There was the one who didn’t know the class was only 45 minutes, and had to bring everything to an abrupt end when the angry meditators assembled outside the door, impatiently waiting to be let into the room.  There was the one who simply ended the class without shavasana.  For those of you who are not yogis, this is practically sacrilege.  Many of us spend 40 (or more) minutes in practice twisting our bodies into strange poses and awkward forms just to get to those blissful 5 minutes of corpse pose that is promised at the end.  There was the one who was so overly obsessed with proper form I have sworn to turn around leave the class if she ever subs again, such was my irritation level at the end of the last class she taught.

And then there was the one who brought along a playlist unlike any other I have ever encountered in a yoga class.  It was bold and loud and so completely out of sync with what I need to practice yoga.  And then, about halfway through the class, a familiar tune rose up:

Another day has gone
I’m still all alone
How could this be
You’re not here with me
You never said goodbye
Someone tell me why
Did you have to go
And leave my world so cold

Continue reading “You Are Not Alone” →

First Impressions

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, TherapyLeave a comment

(or I’m in Therapist Limbo)

Over the last few weeks I’ve been therapist shopping – never an easy or pleasant task.  Many of the therapists I’ve seen have no online presence at all – no website or Psychology Today profile, certainly not a blog or Twitter feed.  So I go into each appointment blind, not sure of what I am going to find, having to rely just on faith of the referrer who provided the name and contact details.  Suffice to say that connection has been elusive.  This is a hard enough task under normal circumstances, made even harder by my particular circumstances.

You see, I don’t even know if I want to be in therapy right now, as much as I might need it.  One therapist remarked to me that I have to find the will to be in therapy, that she couldn’t provide the will for the both of us.  Fair enough – but truthfully I don’t know that I have the will or energy to start this process over again.  I thought I had found the right therapist for me.  I didn’t think I would ever have to start back at the beginning.  I never thought I’d find myself sitting in strange offices across from complete strangers, re-telling my sad little tale.  I thought that part of the therapeutic journey was long behind me.

And although I always feared it, I never fully considered the possibility that my therapist (or I should say ex-therapist?), with whom I had connected and bonded and attached to, would become so ill as to not be able to work anymore or, worse, circumstances would so dramatically change as to preclude us from continuing our work together.

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Lost

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, Therapy1 Comment

(or My Therapist Broke Up With Me Via Email)

After 263 sessions, it all ends with an email.

I guess I got my wish after all, my worst fears realized.  I also got the answer to my question: “Can a therapeutic alliance survive cancer?”  Apparently, no.

I think the fairest and most responsible thing I can do is entrust you into the hands of a therapist who has the capacity to supply an appropriate level of care for you. 

This is going to take too long, it’s simply not fair to you, and ultimately even if/when I do “come back” I won’t be able to give you the frequency or regularity of care you deserve. 

I know this email was written from a place of love, but it was actually quite a cruel message to have to read, and process, all alone.  There was a crassness in her tone, her usual supportive empathic voice missing (not necessarily in the above passages, but in the email as a whole).  In the end, it felt like a kindly worded “fuck off,” but a fuck-off nonetheless.

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Manifesto

On By Mary LennoxIn Anger, Conflict, Finding a Voice, TherapyLeave a comment

(or Shout It From the Rooftops!)

I’ve been re-reading old writings and notes and emails, trying to retrace my path of the past few years.  I’m looking for patterns, for what has changed and what hasn’t.  I’m trying to see where I’ve moved forwards or backwards, where I’ve gone in concentric circles, where I’ve stayed in place or just gotten stuck.

In seeing a new temporary-therapist, I’ve had to recover familiar ground and revisit old injuries.  I’ve had to adjust my schedule, contort to fit into a new space, negotiate a fee.  And I’ve had to contend with a whole host of new feelings – ones of loss and rejection and minimization – that caught me off guard.

I’ve had to let this other person into a space that used to only be occupied by me and my therapist.  I’ve had to tell her about our relationship and things that worked well and things that didn’t.  I had to rehash the Impasse, which has always felt like a dark cloud that continued to lurk over me, occasionally unleashing a torrent of anger and rage when I least suspected it.

One of the ways we found our way out of that impasse (although we still sometimes go back in) was by writing a Manifesto.

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Impasse: A Tale in 3 Acts

On By Mary LennoxIn Anger, Conflict, TherapyLeave a comment

(or When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object)

Prologue: At the heart of every good therapeutic alliance there is an impasse – some insurmountable challenge that must be negotiated between client and therapist before the real work begins.  I know, from my own experience, that being in the depths of an impasse is intolerable.  It takes all the courage and energy you can summon to engage in the battle, to fight the good fight.  I share these stories because it helped me to know how others in my own therapeutic lineage tackled these ruptures, and because I hope my own impasse story gives others hope that there is a way through.  It’s messy and terrifying and may never be fully resolved, but it doesn’t have to spell the end.  It is, in fact, often just the beginning.

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Real

On By Mary LennoxIn Anger, Conflict, Grief, Loss, Love, Therapy2 Comments

(or Questioning Everything I Once Held to Be True About the Therapeutic Alliance)

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out-handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

~ Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

There have been several occasions when I have had to remind my therapist that therapy isn’t real.  She always takes offense at my insistence that therapy is actually an alternate, concocted, manufactured universe that doesn’t even come close to approximating reality.  If all the people in my life were as compassionate and empathic and understanding and able to listen and willing to negotiate and able to engage in conflict and open to change, not to mention be completely focused on me, as my therapist is, then I wouldn’t have a need for therapy!

I know that therapy is meant to be a petri-dish, where you get to test and experiment and fail in safety with a dedicated guide and cheerleader right there by your side.  It’s a chance for a dress-rehearsal, to try things out before you have to do something out there, in the real world.  But it is an artificial construct, with carefully appointed boundaries and roles and responsibilities.  The real world doesn’t work in the same way.  I wish it did, but sadly, it doesn’t.

I also know that what my therapist is really reacting to is my suggestion that the relationship between us isn’t real.  She will counter that the relationship we have is indeed very real, and intimate and loving and supportive and everything you’d hope to find in another person you can relate to.

Sometimes in the past I had allowed myself to believe this, to be pulled into the notion that what we had between us was more than a business transaction.

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Holiday Wish

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, LoveLeave a comment

(or Guilt in a Box)

A few weeks ago a colleague asked me “How was your Thanksgiving?”  I replied by letting out an audible groan, to which he laughed and replied “You are the first person to respond that way.”  And in that moment I realized that not everyone sees the holidays as a detonated minefield ready to explode.

For me, the holidays highlight loss.  I become acutely aware of what I’ve had to sever in order to stay true to myself.  I have a heightened sensitivity to people who are no longer in my life – either by death or estrangement.  I look wistfully at friends and neighbors, who seem surrounded by family and who never have to contemplate the question of where or how to spend the holidays.  Of course they will be with family, of course everyone will get together to celebrate.  I live in hope that we will find a “chosen” family of our own, but it never seems like there is anyone around us who is also family-less.

And yet, I find myself trapped in the traditions of my childhood, unable to completely let go and forge a new set of traditions for my family.  The past is hard enough to shake free from, under normal circumstances.

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Out of Control

On By Mary LennoxIn Conflict, Grief, LossLeave a comment

(or More Tantrums Required?)

Our 4 year old is currently in a battle for control, or lack thereof really.  He will launch into these emotional tantrums and irrational tirades, seemingly over nothing at all.  Or perhaps they are over everything.

Which is how we found ourselves at the beach at few months ago, on a mid-September day, with our son in his pajamas.  When he has these fits, if we can even figure out what he is upset about, we do our best to concede some point or decision to him.  The director of a local preschool advised parents not to fight their children on what they wear to school.  She even suggested that if they want to show up naked, that was perfectly fine – and that after that one time, they wouldn’t try that antic again.  I’m not sure I support the peer shaming of preschoolers to get them to conform to societal norms, so I’m okay with most things as long as there is no inherent danger present, physical or emotional.  Pajamas on the beach seemed to pass that test.

Since it was mid-September, we were just planning on sitting on the beach.  It was a clear, sunny day, but not the beach weather of the height of the summer.  We had left behind our beach umbrella, our sand toys, even our swimsuits.  But sure enough, our son in his pajamas wanted to go into the water.  I said we could go dip our toes in the water, certain that it would be too cold for much else.

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Raw

On By Mary LennoxIn Conflict, Grief, Loss, Therapy2 Comments

(or In Session, with Cancer)

The long-awaited text had finally arrived.  “Can you do Tues at 1:00?”

The text had been sitting on my phone for more than two hours before I saw it.  I stared at it for several minutes, trying to make sense of what I was reading, trying to get my brain to take in what this really meant.  I checked my calendar, then responded “Sure.”  It was the only answer I could give that captured my mixed-up feelings of anticipation and dread.  I wasn’t feeling a “yes” or “absolutely” or “I’ll be there.”  I definitely wasn’t feeling anything punctuated with an exclamation point.

I had been waiting for weeks for this moment to occur.  Of course I would be happy and relieved to see my therapist, but I was also feeling anxious and sad and scared and overwhelmed.  I hate it that our relationship has to be confined to the four walls of her office.  And that the only way I get to make physical contact with her is in that space.

About 30 minutes before I needed to leave for my session, a headache emerged.  My entire head hurt, as if some invisible and unrelenting force was pushing down squarely on the top of my head, but also down the back near my neck and towards my forehead.  I probably should have taken something before I left my office,  but I was hoping it would pass.  On the subway ride downtown, the pain intensified, my head hurting more with each jerk of the train.  By the time I arrived, I was in full-on headache mode.  Not the best way to arrive at a long over-due therapy session.

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Left Behind

On By Mary LennoxIn Grief, Loss, Love, Therapy, Time2 Comments

(with Unfinished Business)

It’s been 15 days (and counting) since I last saw my therapist.  The last time I saw her I was still functioning under the illusion that she and her doctors were working, slowly, methodically, through a long diagnostic process.  Initial signs, along with a family history, pointed to MS, but in order to diagnose, they had to work down the MS rule out list.  There was a long list of possibilities to test for and that would take time to get through.  I did not sense any urgency.  It seemed sensible to remain calm and carry on with these rule-out tests.  Cancer was in the mix, and mentioned, along with the caveat that it seemed unlikely.  At one point, less than a month ago, there was even talk of just needing back surgery, with a mere 10 days to recuperate.

So I wasn’t worried.  And I wasn’t prepared when the very next day, the cancer diagnosis was made.  I had no time to prepare.  I didn’t know we’d be heading into a long, traumatic break.  When she took a 3-week break last spring, we had time to prepare and plan and find ways to explicitly stay connected.  This time, the bottom just fell out.

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