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Sunday, January 20, 2019

the straight jacket

I don't know how I am going to explain all of this. I don't know how I am going to "file a complaint" yet. I am not sure what direction to take, who to take this up with, and yet I know I need to in order to resolve this for me. My life has in some ways come to a halt because of it and I want to move past this.
I was foolishly hoping that I could talk to my captor outside of his professional restraints. I believed if I could he would not be as tempted to use his Jedi mind tricks and that they would not work so well outside of his palace of power. Snowboarding could have freed his mind as it is a place of friendship and fun where safety is always the first priority, so I hoped he might come take a lesson from me or at least be willing to meet up in an environment like that. I hoped that I could help him see better what I was trying to explain about still needing him. I hoped it could be a place where he could safely explore the "human" element that was effecting him so profoundly. I was not afraid of this because I know my boundaries and I know that I am not a threat. I also really did understand the transference and counter-transference and some of the parallels that were taking place. I also wanted him out of his office and professional place because something or someone there had him convinced that I was a liability, which I was not. He believed (and still does) that I was a liability to himself, I was not and am not a liability, danger or threat. He was so afraid of loosing his license because of me, which I knew was irrational. It was frustrating.
...or diabolical. I can't be certain there because I don't truly know his intentions and what he was so fearful of (although he did say it was not me "I am not scared of you," he said when I was talking about how people are afraid of me).
It is a deeply unsettling situation and event that transpired at a time when I was already unsettled.

Flashback to the year 1991:
"I remember the feeling of that," I exclaimed to my mom when we were talking about the events that transpired between the time I took the blow to my head while sledding and I awoke in the hospital the next day; the events that I had no memory of. It had been a year or more since the accident but the whole story had still not been fully told to me. I did not know the details of my story.
They had put me in a straight jacket at one point because I was thrashing, crazy, fighting and out of control and, though I had not and would not regain any other memories from that day and a half, I remembered the feeling of the heavy canvas swaddling me tightly into myself. It was soothing. It helped me feel safe and comforted as something else was able to take control of my out-of-control body and my broken brain. It was the straight jacket that calmed me. I remembered the feeling and I still remember it in a very endearing way. Sometimes I long for it. Irony or paradox?
Present:
That is how my therapist felt to me. He was soothing and comforting as he took control and at times held me tight with his methods, teaching me how to take care of myself while restraining something that felt out of control. He was my straight jacket when my emotions were out of control and my mind was so broken.
I knew I was going to loose him eventually but I did not see it coming when and how it did. I was not as physically broken as I was when I was a child and he was not a straight jacket but when I lost that comfort, at that moment it broke me in a new way. It broke me in ways that were familiar but also in a way I have never experienced before.
It was and still is confusing.
And I have, at times, longed for a straight jacket

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