Ann and Terry
Terry I’ve got a bad headache. Ow, ow, ow, it hurts, it hurts.
Where is it?
It’s here, a bad pain here in front and goes right across here. But it’s worst in my eye, it feels like there’s a knife sticking in it.
Do you want a Panadine love?
No, no I don’t want to take anything anymore. I want to stop taking any sort of pill - except the pill. I don’t want to do what I’ve always done, take a pill and just tried to ignore it. I want to accept it as that’s what we’re trying to do with our bad feelings.
Ow, Ow, Ow, it hurts, it’s very bad, one of my bad ones... ow, ow, ow; pain, I’ve got a bad pain, here, here it hurts the most, a stabbing pain, it’s stabbing into me.
How does it make you feel having it?
Good Terry, I’m glad you asked me, that’s the right question; and so how does it make me feel? You saying that makes me feel like you want to know-
I do want to know, I wouldn’t have asked it-
I know, but that’s all part of it I think. It is you showing you do care, you are interested in me, you do want to know what I’m feeling, how it’s making me feel. And that you’re prepared to listen to me; it’s all part of it, that you actually do care about me and don’t want me to just take a pill so I will shut up and stop complaining about my stupid headache.
But it’s not stupid, headaches are horrible things.
Yes, but that’s how I’ve always looked at it, how I’ve always treated it, as if it’s a stupid thing, just an annoyance, something that shouldn’t be there, and I’ve always just taken the pills to make it go away. To banish it, as if it’s me, and that’s what mum and dad did to me. I was an annoyance to them at times and they just banished me, told me to be quiet, to stop going on about it, to stop complaining, and I guess if they could, they’d have taken pills to make me go away.
So you’re saying your headache is you?
Yes, well it is, isn’t it? I’m the one who has got it, it’s me alright.
But what I mean is how you’ve usually treated your headaches is how your parents treated you, and so you’ve just done to yourself - your headache, that which they did to you.
Yes, that’s right. I have haven’t I? I can see that too now.
But you said it!
I said words Terry, and I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was saying, I was just trying to say how my headache makes me feel... and that too makes me feel good about you Terry-
It does, why? What does?
That you help me to see what I’m saying, you help me to understand it all. I don’t have to worry about that, I don’t have to do that at the same time. I can just say what I feel and not worry about having to work it all out, not worry about what it all means. I know that you are there helping with that, and that makes me feel good. It does Terry, yes very good. I’ve always thought that I’ve had or got to work things out for myself and that’s added even more stress and strain to how I’m already feeling. So to know I have you as my friend and helper, someone willing and wanting to help me work it out, that eases the burden, you know, do you know what I’m saying?
Yes, I do.
And that makes me feel good, but still my head is hurting... ow, ow, ow, hurting, it hurts Terry, all across here, and here, and that stabbing in my eye pain is still there. Ow, ow, ow, the fucking thing, I wish I didn’t get them, I wish it would go away, I hate having them - ow, ow, ow, ow, bad pain, here in my head, my head hurts, shit it hurts, it’s stabbing right in here in my eye - ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, pain, pain, bad pain, bad pain, my head hurts Terry, my head hurts, it’s hurting, it’s hurting very bad, very bad, it’s a terrible pain Terry.
All of me Ann wants you to take a pill, to do something to help yourself, to stop yourself from suffering so much. And I can even feel anger starting to come up in me because you’re not doing it. But this is new for us, to not do what we’ve done just to try and make the pain go away, so I’m trying to refrain from making you take a pill.
Good Terry, because this is my ‘pill’ if you know what I mean. My speaking about my pain, that’s far better than taking any pill and doing what I’ve always done and keeping all the pain buried in me. I’ve never let my headache pain have a voice, I’ve never let it come out. I’ve got the headache to help me see things about myself through the pain it’s giving me, so I want to use it to keep expressing my bad feelings - my pain, and see what comes. And see how much as already come for me, all of what I’ve been saying is knew for me. It’s amazing how things do come to you when you want to speak seriously about your pain and want to understand why you’ve got it.
Ow, ow, ow, the pain, pain, bad pain, I’m suffering Terry, I’ve got a terrible pain, a very bad headache, ow, ow, ow, it hurts, it makes me feel like I’m being crushed out of existence, that it’s saying: no you can’t exist, that you are not right as you are, that you should be killed.
God that sounds severe - that you should be killed - why should you?
I don’t know Terry, it’s just what my bad feelings are making me say, it’s sort of what they want me to say, I can’t explain it, and I don’t even know why I’m saying it, it’s just how my feelings are making me feel.
Well keep going, sorry for stopping you.
No, that’s all right. But thank you for your concern, and encouraging me to keep going.
They’re crushing me, pushing me, it’s like this inner pressure is pushing against me, it’s almost making me want to go to bed, lie down or something, just close my eyes and make everything - me - go black. To black out, to sort of blank out, I don’t know what to say, it’s hard to get the right words, to find that words that actually fit how I’m feeling.
I want to be blacked out, yes I think that’s more like it, as if something or someone is saying that I shouldn’t exist, or shouldn’t be here, and that they are telling me to go away, to go to bed, to get out of their sight. And that’s how my headache is making me feel, like it’s trying to blank me out because I shouldn’t be there, I should be somewhere else, I should go away...
Well that fits in with your parents saying they don’t want you, to stop annoying them; they probably told you to go to bed, you know, as some sort of punishment.
Yes, they did, we were always sent to our room when we were bad, that was our punishment and we couldn’t come out until sometime later, like at dinner time or something like that. And when we did we had to say we were sorry, and then all was forgiven and we could get on with it. But it was all so controlling, that’s what I’m feeling now.
Ow, Ow, hurts, it hurts, I hate it, I hate the pain, I hate feeling so bad, I feel sick, nauseous - in my head; dizzy, it’s really affecting me Terry, I almost feel like I’m going to faint, I feel like I should lie down, but I don’t want to, I want to keep trying to talk about it all.
How is it making me feel...? I’m longing to see the truth... Now I feel angry, yes, angry, I feel very angry Terry, very angry at how mum and dad treated me. Oh I do, I feel like screaming with rage-
Do, I don’t mind, go for it!
I will if it gets to that, but at the moment I only feel like doing it; like raging and raging at them, screaming and yelling at them, even hitting them, and telling them to stop making me go away, that they have no right banishing me to my room. And what for, I can’t even remember what sort of things made them so cross with me. But I hated being sent away, that made me feel so bad, so rejected, so unwanted and like they didn’t care about me, or love me. Terry if they loved me they wouldn’t have sent me away would they, no matter how bad I would have been.
No love, they wouldn’t. They’d not have punished you at all.
That’s right, and they were so mean to me treating me that way. I feel so angry, and I think that’s what my headache is really all about, it’s my unexpressed anger, my rage at them, I want to rage and rage and be furious with them, be raging mad with them, tear their eyes out, rip their heads off, rip them apart. How dare they tell me off, how dare they treat me that way, and it hurt me so much. I used to feel so bad, I can remember that now, lying on my bed crying for hours, crying into my pillow not wanting them or anyone to hear me.
Why not? Why didn’t you want them to hear you?
Because then they’d come and yell at me more to be quite, they didn’t like my crying, that too I can remember. I don’t remember when I was really young, but I know as I got older crying was not allowed. I was a ‘big girl now’ and ‘big girls don’t cry’, ‘big girls don’t behave like that’. Oh Terry it was all such crap, anyone would cry and should be able to cry if they feel like crying. If they feel so bad that all they can do is cry, we should all be allowed to cry no matter how old we are. And to stop a child crying, that’s outright cruelty; I hate them, I hate them for what they did to me and how they treated me!
Gee Ann, you’ve never said you hate them.
Well I do, and I really hate them! That’s how I’m feeling, how much I hate them, they really hurt me, you know, emotionally; they wounded me, scarred me for life, it was abject cruelty how they treated me when they treated me like that.
Terry, I can feel it in my bones, I know what I’m saying is true, it’s the truth coming up in me. It’s so strong, I just know it, and there is nothing anyone else could say that would make me feel otherwise. And I know these are strong and harsh words, but I can still feel I hate them Terry - I HATE THEM! I HATE MY MOTER AND FATHER TERRY; I HATE WHAT THEY DID TO ME, HOW THEY TREATED ME WHEN I WAS YOUNG; OH DO I HATE THEM, AND IF I COULD HAVE MY WAY, I’D RIP THEM APART, I’D DO TO THEM ALL THEY DID TO ME MAKING THEM SUFFER JUST AS MUCH AS THEY MADE ME!
I hate them Terry, hate, hate, hate, I can feel it seething through my veins, hatred, my hatred of them; and I’ve never felt this way about them Terry. But I must have, I must have felt this way when I was young, because I feel like I’m about four or five and I hate them, I just can’t remember properly. I must have blocked it all out. Yes, stopped myself from feeling such feelings. But look Terry, it’s what we read about healing your childhood repression, it’s all in there, deeply buried in you, and it all has to come out so you can see the truth of your bad feelings. And I feel like I’m really seeing it, this is the real thing, all the rest we’ve done so far on ourselves - well all the rest I’ve done and said about myself, has just been getting me prepared to see this, for this Terry I reckon is the beginning of seeing the real truth about my relationship with my mum and dad.
I can feel my anger and hatred seething in me. I feel like I’m full of it, it will never end, I will never be able to see them again, I’ll never be able to face them without feeling these feelings. But that then scares me because then they will yell and punish me again, sending me to my room.
But you’re not a little girl anymore Ann.
I know, but that’s how I’m feeling, like I am, like I’ve never stopped being a little girl. And they will say that I’m being naughty by yelling at them; and that I’m never allowed to yell at them, no way, that they will send me to my room forever and I’ll never be allowed to come out. I feel so scared Terry.
Oh Terry, I feel scared witless, I’m shitting myself, the thought of standing up to mum and dad, of actually yelling at them and telling them how nasty and cruel and unloving they are. Oh Terry, I feel like I’m going to faint again, the feelings are so strong.
Scared, scared, now I feel so scared, really scared-
What are you actually scared about, do you know?
I’m scared that they’ll hit me, that dad will hit me, smack me, and send me to bed without dinner. I remember when he did that, and that’s what I’m scared about. Yes, he used to do that, and I’d not have any dinner and I felt even worse than I said being just sent to my room. I feel so bad, so unwanted, so unloved. Very unloved. I feel very unloved Terry - they didn’t love me. If you love someone you don’t hit them, you don’t send them to bed without their dinner. That sort of punishment, that sort of thing shows they didn’t love me. They didn’t love me Terry... (crying)
They didn’t love me Terry... They didn’t love me...
Here love, I love you.
They didn’t love me Terry, my own parents, mum and dad didn’t love me... (crying more, louder sobbing).
Do you want a tissue?
No, I just want the tears to run down my face, I don’t want to do anything to take them away, that’s only more of my denying them. I want to let myself cry Terry, like how I did, how I remember I did when I was lying on my bed, just letting them run into my pillow. It would end up all wet and I’d have to turn it over to go to sleep.
And they didn’t know, they didn’t know I cried and cried because they hurt me and I felt so unloved by them. They probably never knew Terry; so what sort of a relationship is that Terry, that your own parents don’t even know you’re lying in your room sobbing your eyes out. And did they care? No, they were probably happy that I was crying if they did know, because their punishment was having the right effect on me.
What bastards they were, what fucking right did they have in treating me that way. I hate them even more, both of them; dad hit me, mum didn’t, but mum allowed him to, they’re both in it together, both the same in it. I hate them both, I do Terry, I really do, and I never want to see them again.
Really Ann? But we’re going over there on Friday for dinner!
I know, and that’s how I feel now. If I feel differently by then... I can’t think about that Terry and it’s taking me away from my bad feelings now.
I feel so raging angry with them again, I don’t feel scared of them anymore, I feel like I could hit them, and I would fight them to the death, and I don’t even care if they locked me in my room forever as I’d never give in, I’ll rip the room apart, I’ll smash everything I could, I’ll smash them! (Notice that Ann changes tense as she’s back there in her feelings with her parents, as if it’s now her present. Your feeling expressing taking you back and making you feel like are now as you were then. This sort of thing happens a lot to me in my healing, not so much with Marion as she keeps it all focused on how she’s feeling now.) I’d not give in Terry, not this time, and it wouldn’t matter what they did to me. I’d keep going, yelling and screaming at them until they had to give in, until they had to back down. For once I’d win, I’d have it my way and they can do what I want. Yes, they can do what I want for a change, and for all time, and I’ll never again do what they want. Yes, that’s how I want it now, that’s how I wish it were back then for me.
Yes Terry, that makes me feel good, so much better... (dying her face now and blowing her nose.)
Yes Terry, and fuck my head feels like it’s about to explode, but fuck it, it can, I don’t care. I don’t care if I blow up, if my brain fries, fuck it, I hate them, I hate them, I hate them - I HATE THEM! So fuck them Terry, and if they dare treat me that way again I’m going to give it to them. I’m going to let them have it, all guns blazing, that’s for sure, I’m not going to take any more of that shit from them. No way, never again, not from them, not from anyone, not even from you Terry!
I’m hardly likely to send you to your bedroom and not allow you out and make you miss dinner.
No, because then you’d have to cook it for yourself!
Yes, and that wouldn’t be right. I’m the hard working man who needs to come home to find that his lovely, kind and caring wife has been slaving over a hot stove all day for him.
Fuck you Terry! Fuck you and your slaving over a hot roast!
Yeah! Fuck me! Let’s go out for dinner now... how are you feeling, how’s your head?
Well the pain is easing off, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode any longer. And I feel better within myself Terry. Yes, I feel good, all fired up, ready to do battle. I’ll take them on, I’ll show them; and yes, let’s go out for dinner, to celebrate my victory, being able to see all of this about myself.
But about your parents, how are you going to be able to be with them, to sit with them face-to-face when you feel you now hate them so much?
Fuck it Terry, I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ll worry about that then. But if you have worries about it, about how I’m going to be and what I should do, then you’d better speak up about them. You’re the one who’s more scared about making your parents angry with you, not me; not me in this mood now, I am still raging at them inside myself, and I don’t care about them. But in a way Terry, strangely, I also feel that in some way it’s none of their business how I feel about them. Yes, that I don’t even have to tell them that I hate them, or at least hated them for how they treated me. So now I feel I can still go and see them, I’m even looking forward to dinner with them to see how I feel about them, and to see what happens.
What like, like see if you’re going to yell at them?
Yes, something like that, just see how I feel now being with them, now that I’m more aware of how they treated me and how much it hurt me and how unloved by them I felt.
I don’t know whether I’m looking forward to it.
Why not Terry?
What if you make some sort of scene... I...
What Terry, you don’t know what you’d do?
Yes.
What do you think you should do?
I don’t know. I don’t know if I am to support you or them, that’s what I think it is. Should I hate them too for what they did to you and how they treated you... but I like them both and they’ve always been good to me.
You don’t have to be as I am Terry. I don’t mind if you don’t support me. You’ve got to do what you feel. You can just leave it all up to me. I do however want you there with me, so if I wanted to go you’d take me home, and I would hate it if you took their side joining against me and telling me I was bad for upsetting them or something like that. But you’ve still got to do what you feel like doing, and then we’d have to talk about it all when we got home.
I’d not do that Ann... at least I don’t think I would. I don’t know what I’d do now with all this feeling stuff and all the new feelings and reactions to things I’ve been having lately.
Terry all you have to do is stay true to how you feel. Just be yourself, and besides, it’s got nothing to do with you, it’s between them and me. And you never know, it might go all right, it might even be better with them because I’ll be freer in myself and not feel so controlled by them as I have always been.
Have you?
Yes, and I’m becoming more aware of it; but yes, whenever I’m with them, I don’t just feel free to be myself, like I am and can be with you. That’s what I like being with you for Terry as you don’t make me feel like I have to behave in a certain way, be good, be acceptable to you, as they do. Yes, there is always this deeper part in me that feels like it’s still their little girl and I have to behave accordingly. I take pleasure in shocking them sometimes, swearing or saying something a bit more outrageous, but I can see that’s really just a little power trip for me, when really underneath I feel scared of them. Yes Terry, and I’ve never really felt that as clearly, but I do, I do always feel a little apprehensive when I’m with them.
Can you say more about that?
I feel like I have to mind my ‘P’s and Q’s’ and conduct myself like a lady should. Yes, that there is always an edge to being with them, I never feel just relaxed and happy in their company. Not how I feel with you.
Isn’t it strange Terry, that I’ve never said that to anyone, I’ve not even fully acknowledged it to myself, but it’s always been there as an underlying feeling in me.
It shows what happens when you start speaking about all of these things, all of your feelings.
Yes, bringing myself out so I can see myself, see how I am. And it’s true, the more I think about it, the more I can feel it, I don’t feel just happy and at ease with mum and dad, I feel more at ease with mum... but still, it’s still there. And with dad, no I definitely feel a tension in me, a stress of sorts, yes that’s it, as I said, like I’m almost sort of holding my breath waiting for the bad thing to happen.
What bad thing? (When you’re asked good leading questions as Terry is, it helps you to bring more of your deeper hidden feelings and understanding of them out. And it’s also good to know you have a friend, someone in the world willing to not only listen to you and accept you as you are, but to want to know all of you - more of you. It’s a great support and comfort - so the more questions the better, but they have to come from feelings and not just from the mind because you believe you should ask them it being a good help and what you do to help someone with their healing.)
I don’t know, but I guess some sort of punishment... yes his disapproval of me, I think that’s it, like he’s always looking at me in that light or something, and if I put a foot wrong he’ll tell me off. But that’s more vague, harder to feel right now, but I can sense there’s more of that within me.
Well when you’re with them, for what I have seen, you do seem very happy and relaxed and comfortable, you don’t seem like you’re stressed or forcing yourself to be a certain way, like a good girl with them or anything like that.
Yeah I know, I can see that too, but this is sort of far off in me somewhere, even as if it’s not really me, but I know it is.
You’re probably just not familiar with it, as it does seem to fit in with how they treated you when you were young.
Yes probably, I’ll have to wait and see if more comes up about it.
Hey Terry! Guess what?!
What?
My headache has gone!
Really?
Yes, the main pain has gone, and all I feel is a little sort of numb feeling in and around my head where it was. But how’s that, that’s bloody fantastic mate, my headaches have never gone without my having to take pills to get rid of them. We’ll definitely be celebrating this tonight Terry - where shall we go?
Terry I’ve got a bad headache. Ow, ow, ow, it hurts, it hurts.
Where is it?
It’s here, a bad pain here in front and goes right across here. But it’s worst in my eye, it feels like there’s a knife sticking in it.
Do you want a Panadine love?
No, no I don’t want to take anything anymore. I want to stop taking any sort of pill - except the pill. I don’t want to do what I’ve always done, take a pill and just tried to ignore it. I want to accept it as that’s what we’re trying to do with our bad feelings.
Ow, Ow, Ow, it hurts, it’s very bad, one of my bad ones... ow, ow, ow; pain, I’ve got a bad pain, here, here it hurts the most, a stabbing pain, it’s stabbing into me.
How does it make you feel having it?
Good Terry, I’m glad you asked me, that’s the right question; and so how does it make me feel? You saying that makes me feel like you want to know-
I do want to know, I wouldn’t have asked it-
I know, but that’s all part of it I think. It is you showing you do care, you are interested in me, you do want to know what I’m feeling, how it’s making me feel. And that you’re prepared to listen to me; it’s all part of it, that you actually do care about me and don’t want me to just take a pill so I will shut up and stop complaining about my stupid headache.
But it’s not stupid, headaches are horrible things.
Yes, but that’s how I’ve always looked at it, how I’ve always treated it, as if it’s a stupid thing, just an annoyance, something that shouldn’t be there, and I’ve always just taken the pills to make it go away. To banish it, as if it’s me, and that’s what mum and dad did to me. I was an annoyance to them at times and they just banished me, told me to be quiet, to stop going on about it, to stop complaining, and I guess if they could, they’d have taken pills to make me go away.
So you’re saying your headache is you?
Yes, well it is, isn’t it? I’m the one who has got it, it’s me alright.
But what I mean is how you’ve usually treated your headaches is how your parents treated you, and so you’ve just done to yourself - your headache, that which they did to you.
Yes, that’s right. I have haven’t I? I can see that too now.
But you said it!
I said words Terry, and I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was saying, I was just trying to say how my headache makes me feel... and that too makes me feel good about you Terry-
It does, why? What does?
That you help me to see what I’m saying, you help me to understand it all. I don’t have to worry about that, I don’t have to do that at the same time. I can just say what I feel and not worry about having to work it all out, not worry about what it all means. I know that you are there helping with that, and that makes me feel good. It does Terry, yes very good. I’ve always thought that I’ve had or got to work things out for myself and that’s added even more stress and strain to how I’m already feeling. So to know I have you as my friend and helper, someone willing and wanting to help me work it out, that eases the burden, you know, do you know what I’m saying?
Yes, I do.
And that makes me feel good, but still my head is hurting... ow, ow, ow, hurting, it hurts Terry, all across here, and here, and that stabbing in my eye pain is still there. Ow, ow, ow, the fucking thing, I wish I didn’t get them, I wish it would go away, I hate having them - ow, ow, ow, ow, bad pain, here in my head, my head hurts, shit it hurts, it’s stabbing right in here in my eye - ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, pain, pain, bad pain, bad pain, my head hurts Terry, my head hurts, it’s hurting, it’s hurting very bad, very bad, it’s a terrible pain Terry.
All of me Ann wants you to take a pill, to do something to help yourself, to stop yourself from suffering so much. And I can even feel anger starting to come up in me because you’re not doing it. But this is new for us, to not do what we’ve done just to try and make the pain go away, so I’m trying to refrain from making you take a pill.
Good Terry, because this is my ‘pill’ if you know what I mean. My speaking about my pain, that’s far better than taking any pill and doing what I’ve always done and keeping all the pain buried in me. I’ve never let my headache pain have a voice, I’ve never let it come out. I’ve got the headache to help me see things about myself through the pain it’s giving me, so I want to use it to keep expressing my bad feelings - my pain, and see what comes. And see how much as already come for me, all of what I’ve been saying is knew for me. It’s amazing how things do come to you when you want to speak seriously about your pain and want to understand why you’ve got it.
Ow, ow, ow, the pain, pain, bad pain, I’m suffering Terry, I’ve got a terrible pain, a very bad headache, ow, ow, ow, it hurts, it makes me feel like I’m being crushed out of existence, that it’s saying: no you can’t exist, that you are not right as you are, that you should be killed.
God that sounds severe - that you should be killed - why should you?
I don’t know Terry, it’s just what my bad feelings are making me say, it’s sort of what they want me to say, I can’t explain it, and I don’t even know why I’m saying it, it’s just how my feelings are making me feel.
Well keep going, sorry for stopping you.
No, that’s all right. But thank you for your concern, and encouraging me to keep going.
They’re crushing me, pushing me, it’s like this inner pressure is pushing against me, it’s almost making me want to go to bed, lie down or something, just close my eyes and make everything - me - go black. To black out, to sort of blank out, I don’t know what to say, it’s hard to get the right words, to find that words that actually fit how I’m feeling.
I want to be blacked out, yes I think that’s more like it, as if something or someone is saying that I shouldn’t exist, or shouldn’t be here, and that they are telling me to go away, to go to bed, to get out of their sight. And that’s how my headache is making me feel, like it’s trying to blank me out because I shouldn’t be there, I should be somewhere else, I should go away...
Well that fits in with your parents saying they don’t want you, to stop annoying them; they probably told you to go to bed, you know, as some sort of punishment.
Yes, they did, we were always sent to our room when we were bad, that was our punishment and we couldn’t come out until sometime later, like at dinner time or something like that. And when we did we had to say we were sorry, and then all was forgiven and we could get on with it. But it was all so controlling, that’s what I’m feeling now.
Ow, Ow, hurts, it hurts, I hate it, I hate the pain, I hate feeling so bad, I feel sick, nauseous - in my head; dizzy, it’s really affecting me Terry, I almost feel like I’m going to faint, I feel like I should lie down, but I don’t want to, I want to keep trying to talk about it all.
How is it making me feel...? I’m longing to see the truth... Now I feel angry, yes, angry, I feel very angry Terry, very angry at how mum and dad treated me. Oh I do, I feel like screaming with rage-
Do, I don’t mind, go for it!
I will if it gets to that, but at the moment I only feel like doing it; like raging and raging at them, screaming and yelling at them, even hitting them, and telling them to stop making me go away, that they have no right banishing me to my room. And what for, I can’t even remember what sort of things made them so cross with me. But I hated being sent away, that made me feel so bad, so rejected, so unwanted and like they didn’t care about me, or love me. Terry if they loved me they wouldn’t have sent me away would they, no matter how bad I would have been.
No love, they wouldn’t. They’d not have punished you at all.
That’s right, and they were so mean to me treating me that way. I feel so angry, and I think that’s what my headache is really all about, it’s my unexpressed anger, my rage at them, I want to rage and rage and be furious with them, be raging mad with them, tear their eyes out, rip their heads off, rip them apart. How dare they tell me off, how dare they treat me that way, and it hurt me so much. I used to feel so bad, I can remember that now, lying on my bed crying for hours, crying into my pillow not wanting them or anyone to hear me.
Why not? Why didn’t you want them to hear you?
Because then they’d come and yell at me more to be quite, they didn’t like my crying, that too I can remember. I don’t remember when I was really young, but I know as I got older crying was not allowed. I was a ‘big girl now’ and ‘big girls don’t cry’, ‘big girls don’t behave like that’. Oh Terry it was all such crap, anyone would cry and should be able to cry if they feel like crying. If they feel so bad that all they can do is cry, we should all be allowed to cry no matter how old we are. And to stop a child crying, that’s outright cruelty; I hate them, I hate them for what they did to me and how they treated me!
Gee Ann, you’ve never said you hate them.
Well I do, and I really hate them! That’s how I’m feeling, how much I hate them, they really hurt me, you know, emotionally; they wounded me, scarred me for life, it was abject cruelty how they treated me when they treated me like that.
Terry, I can feel it in my bones, I know what I’m saying is true, it’s the truth coming up in me. It’s so strong, I just know it, and there is nothing anyone else could say that would make me feel otherwise. And I know these are strong and harsh words, but I can still feel I hate them Terry - I HATE THEM! I HATE MY MOTER AND FATHER TERRY; I HATE WHAT THEY DID TO ME, HOW THEY TREATED ME WHEN I WAS YOUNG; OH DO I HATE THEM, AND IF I COULD HAVE MY WAY, I’D RIP THEM APART, I’D DO TO THEM ALL THEY DID TO ME MAKING THEM SUFFER JUST AS MUCH AS THEY MADE ME!
I hate them Terry, hate, hate, hate, I can feel it seething through my veins, hatred, my hatred of them; and I’ve never felt this way about them Terry. But I must have, I must have felt this way when I was young, because I feel like I’m about four or five and I hate them, I just can’t remember properly. I must have blocked it all out. Yes, stopped myself from feeling such feelings. But look Terry, it’s what we read about healing your childhood repression, it’s all in there, deeply buried in you, and it all has to come out so you can see the truth of your bad feelings. And I feel like I’m really seeing it, this is the real thing, all the rest we’ve done so far on ourselves - well all the rest I’ve done and said about myself, has just been getting me prepared to see this, for this Terry I reckon is the beginning of seeing the real truth about my relationship with my mum and dad.
I can feel my anger and hatred seething in me. I feel like I’m full of it, it will never end, I will never be able to see them again, I’ll never be able to face them without feeling these feelings. But that then scares me because then they will yell and punish me again, sending me to my room.
But you’re not a little girl anymore Ann.
I know, but that’s how I’m feeling, like I am, like I’ve never stopped being a little girl. And they will say that I’m being naughty by yelling at them; and that I’m never allowed to yell at them, no way, that they will send me to my room forever and I’ll never be allowed to come out. I feel so scared Terry.
Oh Terry, I feel scared witless, I’m shitting myself, the thought of standing up to mum and dad, of actually yelling at them and telling them how nasty and cruel and unloving they are. Oh Terry, I feel like I’m going to faint again, the feelings are so strong.
Scared, scared, now I feel so scared, really scared-
What are you actually scared about, do you know?
I’m scared that they’ll hit me, that dad will hit me, smack me, and send me to bed without dinner. I remember when he did that, and that’s what I’m scared about. Yes, he used to do that, and I’d not have any dinner and I felt even worse than I said being just sent to my room. I feel so bad, so unwanted, so unloved. Very unloved. I feel very unloved Terry - they didn’t love me. If you love someone you don’t hit them, you don’t send them to bed without their dinner. That sort of punishment, that sort of thing shows they didn’t love me. They didn’t love me Terry... (crying)
They didn’t love me Terry... They didn’t love me...
Here love, I love you.
They didn’t love me Terry, my own parents, mum and dad didn’t love me... (crying more, louder sobbing).
Do you want a tissue?
No, I just want the tears to run down my face, I don’t want to do anything to take them away, that’s only more of my denying them. I want to let myself cry Terry, like how I did, how I remember I did when I was lying on my bed, just letting them run into my pillow. It would end up all wet and I’d have to turn it over to go to sleep.
And they didn’t know, they didn’t know I cried and cried because they hurt me and I felt so unloved by them. They probably never knew Terry; so what sort of a relationship is that Terry, that your own parents don’t even know you’re lying in your room sobbing your eyes out. And did they care? No, they were probably happy that I was crying if they did know, because their punishment was having the right effect on me.
What bastards they were, what fucking right did they have in treating me that way. I hate them even more, both of them; dad hit me, mum didn’t, but mum allowed him to, they’re both in it together, both the same in it. I hate them both, I do Terry, I really do, and I never want to see them again.
Really Ann? But we’re going over there on Friday for dinner!
I know, and that’s how I feel now. If I feel differently by then... I can’t think about that Terry and it’s taking me away from my bad feelings now.
I feel so raging angry with them again, I don’t feel scared of them anymore, I feel like I could hit them, and I would fight them to the death, and I don’t even care if they locked me in my room forever as I’d never give in, I’ll rip the room apart, I’ll smash everything I could, I’ll smash them! (Notice that Ann changes tense as she’s back there in her feelings with her parents, as if it’s now her present. Your feeling expressing taking you back and making you feel like are now as you were then. This sort of thing happens a lot to me in my healing, not so much with Marion as she keeps it all focused on how she’s feeling now.) I’d not give in Terry, not this time, and it wouldn’t matter what they did to me. I’d keep going, yelling and screaming at them until they had to give in, until they had to back down. For once I’d win, I’d have it my way and they can do what I want. Yes, they can do what I want for a change, and for all time, and I’ll never again do what they want. Yes, that’s how I want it now, that’s how I wish it were back then for me.
Yes Terry, that makes me feel good, so much better... (dying her face now and blowing her nose.)
Yes Terry, and fuck my head feels like it’s about to explode, but fuck it, it can, I don’t care. I don’t care if I blow up, if my brain fries, fuck it, I hate them, I hate them, I hate them - I HATE THEM! So fuck them Terry, and if they dare treat me that way again I’m going to give it to them. I’m going to let them have it, all guns blazing, that’s for sure, I’m not going to take any more of that shit from them. No way, never again, not from them, not from anyone, not even from you Terry!
I’m hardly likely to send you to your bedroom and not allow you out and make you miss dinner.
No, because then you’d have to cook it for yourself!
Yes, and that wouldn’t be right. I’m the hard working man who needs to come home to find that his lovely, kind and caring wife has been slaving over a hot stove all day for him.
Fuck you Terry! Fuck you and your slaving over a hot roast!
Yeah! Fuck me! Let’s go out for dinner now... how are you feeling, how’s your head?
Well the pain is easing off, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode any longer. And I feel better within myself Terry. Yes, I feel good, all fired up, ready to do battle. I’ll take them on, I’ll show them; and yes, let’s go out for dinner, to celebrate my victory, being able to see all of this about myself.
But about your parents, how are you going to be able to be with them, to sit with them face-to-face when you feel you now hate them so much?
Fuck it Terry, I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ll worry about that then. But if you have worries about it, about how I’m going to be and what I should do, then you’d better speak up about them. You’re the one who’s more scared about making your parents angry with you, not me; not me in this mood now, I am still raging at them inside myself, and I don’t care about them. But in a way Terry, strangely, I also feel that in some way it’s none of their business how I feel about them. Yes, that I don’t even have to tell them that I hate them, or at least hated them for how they treated me. So now I feel I can still go and see them, I’m even looking forward to dinner with them to see how I feel about them, and to see what happens.
What like, like see if you’re going to yell at them?
Yes, something like that, just see how I feel now being with them, now that I’m more aware of how they treated me and how much it hurt me and how unloved by them I felt.
I don’t know whether I’m looking forward to it.
Why not Terry?
What if you make some sort of scene... I...
What Terry, you don’t know what you’d do?
Yes.
What do you think you should do?
I don’t know. I don’t know if I am to support you or them, that’s what I think it is. Should I hate them too for what they did to you and how they treated you... but I like them both and they’ve always been good to me.
You don’t have to be as I am Terry. I don’t mind if you don’t support me. You’ve got to do what you feel. You can just leave it all up to me. I do however want you there with me, so if I wanted to go you’d take me home, and I would hate it if you took their side joining against me and telling me I was bad for upsetting them or something like that. But you’ve still got to do what you feel like doing, and then we’d have to talk about it all when we got home.
I’d not do that Ann... at least I don’t think I would. I don’t know what I’d do now with all this feeling stuff and all the new feelings and reactions to things I’ve been having lately.
Terry all you have to do is stay true to how you feel. Just be yourself, and besides, it’s got nothing to do with you, it’s between them and me. And you never know, it might go all right, it might even be better with them because I’ll be freer in myself and not feel so controlled by them as I have always been.
Have you?
Yes, and I’m becoming more aware of it; but yes, whenever I’m with them, I don’t just feel free to be myself, like I am and can be with you. That’s what I like being with you for Terry as you don’t make me feel like I have to behave in a certain way, be good, be acceptable to you, as they do. Yes, there is always this deeper part in me that feels like it’s still their little girl and I have to behave accordingly. I take pleasure in shocking them sometimes, swearing or saying something a bit more outrageous, but I can see that’s really just a little power trip for me, when really underneath I feel scared of them. Yes Terry, and I’ve never really felt that as clearly, but I do, I do always feel a little apprehensive when I’m with them.
Can you say more about that?
I feel like I have to mind my ‘P’s and Q’s’ and conduct myself like a lady should. Yes, that there is always an edge to being with them, I never feel just relaxed and happy in their company. Not how I feel with you.
Isn’t it strange Terry, that I’ve never said that to anyone, I’ve not even fully acknowledged it to myself, but it’s always been there as an underlying feeling in me.
It shows what happens when you start speaking about all of these things, all of your feelings.
Yes, bringing myself out so I can see myself, see how I am. And it’s true, the more I think about it, the more I can feel it, I don’t feel just happy and at ease with mum and dad, I feel more at ease with mum... but still, it’s still there. And with dad, no I definitely feel a tension in me, a stress of sorts, yes that’s it, as I said, like I’m almost sort of holding my breath waiting for the bad thing to happen.
What bad thing? (When you’re asked good leading questions as Terry is, it helps you to bring more of your deeper hidden feelings and understanding of them out. And it’s also good to know you have a friend, someone in the world willing to not only listen to you and accept you as you are, but to want to know all of you - more of you. It’s a great support and comfort - so the more questions the better, but they have to come from feelings and not just from the mind because you believe you should ask them it being a good help and what you do to help someone with their healing.)
I don’t know, but I guess some sort of punishment... yes his disapproval of me, I think that’s it, like he’s always looking at me in that light or something, and if I put a foot wrong he’ll tell me off. But that’s more vague, harder to feel right now, but I can sense there’s more of that within me.
Well when you’re with them, for what I have seen, you do seem very happy and relaxed and comfortable, you don’t seem like you’re stressed or forcing yourself to be a certain way, like a good girl with them or anything like that.
Yeah I know, I can see that too, but this is sort of far off in me somewhere, even as if it’s not really me, but I know it is.
You’re probably just not familiar with it, as it does seem to fit in with how they treated you when you were young.
Yes probably, I’ll have to wait and see if more comes up about it.
Hey Terry! Guess what?!
What?
My headache has gone!
Really?
Yes, the main pain has gone, and all I feel is a little sort of numb feeling in and around my head where it was. But how’s that, that’s bloody fantastic mate, my headaches have never gone without my having to take pills to get rid of them. We’ll definitely be celebrating this tonight Terry - where shall we go?