I remember as a kid how my Easter basket always looked... a large chocolate bunny in the middle, a small toy, jelly beans (no black ones) and the bubble gum eggs... I also remember the year it all changed. My basket still looked the same but instead of the big bunny being solid when I bit into this one my teeth crashed through it and into my tongue.
I’m feeling like that little kid again. T wants me using my symbols of the supportive adults Ihad identified from my childhood early in our work. There were some teachers, a bus driver, people from school... people who had been my world, people that had saved my life, the people I hung out with when things got rough. But now T and I have been working together just over a year. He should be the hollow bunny, it is a professional relationship... but he isn’t. He is as solid as it gets. In light of how T treats me I am seeing how very hollow those other “bunnies” were. The times they took my parents side even when my parents were doing a lot of harm, the fact that there really wasn’t anything substantial to any of the relationships other than my dependency, the fact that many knew of the abuse and did little to nothing. The fact that beyond being normal (AKA not abusive to me) these people really did nothing. The one who came closest to being solid was the priest but I didn’t understand what he was offering me. T wants me to have my “support” people because we are processing a whole lot of trauma... but I don’t want to have to grieve on top of the trauma. I am seeing more and more how much of my life was “hollow bunnies” and how I continue that in my life... because T refuses to be hollow.
T wants me to feel support from outside of him, he wants me to remember safe places... but what if the reality is that there weren’t any? That some were just less harmful?