“I don’t know…I guess I don’t ever have any good memories of him come up.”
She studies me. “Can you explain more of the fear in not wanting to experience a good memory with him?”
“I think…that I’ve put him in this box that’s labeledbad…and I don’t want to associate anything good with it because he doesn’t deserve that?”
“Are you asking me if he does, or telling me he doesn’t?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“Can I suggest something?”
I nod.
“Two things can be true at the same time,” she says softly. “There’s a part of you that needs ‘Dad equals danger’ to stay very black-and-white because that has kept you safe. And there’s another part that just remembered a happy memory. Letting that second part speak for a few seconds does not pardon him, rewrite history, or betray you or your sister’s experience. It simply says that moment was real for little you.” She watches me for a moment, trying to detect how I’m feeling. “Your nervous system filed your dad under ‘threat.’ So when a sweet memory pops up, the protector part of your brain hits delete because it’s afraid that sweetness will weaken the verdict, making him not guilty. But remembering a true, safe moment isn’t a loophole in the system that makes the bad not exist. It’s just information.”
I swallow, still listening.
“If guilt shows up and says, ‘You’re betraying us by remembering,’ just name it and take the power back. ‘Hi, guilt. I know you’re trying to protect me. Adult me is still in charge, and we’re okay.’ That alone can take away the power of it scaring you.”
I let that sink in. It’s one of the tools that has helped me the most. When I feel panicked, or scared, or triggered by a memory…being able to label it and know what the feeling is, know what is causing it, and knowing it can only take over if I let it, helps me to not be afraid of that feeling as much, not pour any more gasoline on the fire in my mind.
“We can also keep memories that make you feel this way inside labels. ‘The Swing Moment’ belongs to Little Lydia, not to your father, notto the story of what came before it or after it. It’s yours. You can visit it when you want, and leave when you choose to.”
I feel the emotions start to thicken in my throat, and I try to work them back down, wanting to get through one session without crying.
“And Lydia,” she adds quietly. “You don’t owe him redemption. You owe her—little you—remembrance. That’s different.”
Something breaks in my chest…but in a way that doesn’t feel like shattering. More like a seam loosening so I can breathe easier.
We talk about the foster homes—the nice ones who were just tired, the ones that were never nice. The time I hid in a closet for hours, scared to be found. The way I learned to be invisible so I wasn’t a burden on the people around me. The way it was ingrained in me early in life that I need to shape myself around other people’s feelings and comfortability.
“You made yourself likable to be safe. It was like armor you learned to use. But armor gets heavy. You have to learn that you no longer need it; you’re strong enough without it, without needing to change for other people. They don’t have the power to hurt you the same way they did back then.”
We talk about Sarah and Mark, and how it’s normal to feel resistance to accepting them as a permanent family when I’ve never experienced that before; to give myself grace and give them space to show me it’s possible.
We talk about Camilla. About how I felt after she was gone. The way I started looking for her in every crowd, and the rage that came when I didn’t find her, and the broken way I felt when I remembered I wouldn’teverfind her.
“You have complicated grief,” she says softly. “That just means grief with landmines everywhere. We want to clear them out carefully so you’re able to visit memories of her and it be in celebration, not with fear and anxiety wrapped around it.”
We talk about Eli like I’m walking barefoot on glass. We talk about how, at first, sex felt like proof I wasn’t invisible and was wanted. Proof I could be loved and love someone back. How then it became currency someone expected from me, then punishment, then anesthesia in college after he was gone. We talk about how he learned how he could push my boundaries for the self-satisfaction of knowing and showing he had the control.
“With abusive partners, we have to understand that they were never looking for your love. They were looking for control, and the more control you give them, the harder they look for more. The cycle doesn’t end because you give them what they want, because the cycle…never…ends.”
We talk about how love and hurt twisted together until I couldn’t tell which was which. We talk about how, after he died, I used whatever was close and easy to cope with. Alcohol that helped me pretend to be happy, sex with strangers to feel like I was in control again, and highs that turned off the memories that were stuck on a loop.
“Your brain didn’t get addicted to these bad things themselves,” she says when she sees the hurt behind my eyes. “It got addicted to the relief they brought you. Your strategies made sense. They kept you here. That’s why you kept choosing them. We can understand the job they were trying to do, respect them for how they helped at the time, and then replace them with better strategies that don’t come with more damage as a side effect.”
She says it like she’s trying to find the right shoe for me. No moral lecture, just—this one felt good at first when you put it on, but hurts the longer you walk in it; let’s try something better.I’m stubborn, so I cross my arms and argue with her a little.
She doesn’t argue back, though. She just listens and reassures me. “Your protector is here. I like her. She’s loud when she needs to be, and she pushes back andasks questions. I want her to do those things. I want you to look for the answers that will teach your brain why you reach for certain things, and why that may or may not be the best option in the long run.”
“Let’s play with power a little,” she says. “You didn’t get to choose then. You can choose now. Your old rule was ‘I soothe with sex, I control with sex, I prove to myself with sex.’ We need a new rule. It doesn’t have to be a forever rule, but a ‘just until I heal’ rule. It can be ‘I won’t act on sexual urges for 90 days with someone’ or ‘I won’t escalate past hand-holding or kissing’ or ‘I will check my body color before any sexual decision and stop if I hit yellow.’ You get to write it.”
“So…abstinence,” I say, rolling my eyes, thinking of all the pamphlets that treat me like a cautionary tale. “Great.”
“There’s a reason many cultures, religions, and beliefs push for sex to stay inside of a marriage. Regardless of what you believe, sex is a powerful and impactful experience. When it’s not guarded, people can get hurt, or use it in an unhealthy way. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.” She gives me a small, comforting smile. “We can call it something else. Call it a pause, call it your nervous system resetting. We just need to find the best way to repair the link between touch and safety for you, and we won’t be able to do that if you’re still using sex to cope and it’s still something that is covering up pain.”
I snort and can’t help it. “Alright, but like…how do I even get there? I don’t want a relationship. Eli ruined real intimacy for me, and I’m too scared of love. What am I even building toward if I’m not trying to be somebody’s girlfriend or wife?”
