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 It turns out that the weekend is essentially organized around four group therapy sessions: Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning, with some assignments to complete between sessions 1 and 2 and between 2 and 3. There are six women attending, and all of them have worked with E in group or individual therapy (or both).

 

Session 1. After dinner, we settle in the living room, with its big, comfortable couches. We talk a little bit about why we are here (and how we are all a little nervous). Then E starts to talk about mindfulness. Some of us already have a meditation practice, and she asks us to talk about what we gain from it. Others say they have maybe tried but feel like they “are doing it wrong” or just don’t know how to get it started.

E leads a guided meditation, focusing us first on our breath. I do this regularly and so it’s familiar, which helps me feel better about being in such an unfamiliar setting. Then she has us take a short tour of our lives, looking at our younger selves starting at about age five, progressing through elementary school, reaching puberty, becoming a teenager, a young woman… at all different ages. We see our younger selves and identify a part that wants some attention and care.

After the meditation, E give us our assignment, essentially a repeat of a practice she’s had me do many times in therapy: have our wise inner guide (the one I call the “wise woman”) invite that younger self to come and sit with us, to talk with us–if she feels comfortable. Maybe at first the girl won’t trust that we really want to attend to her and listen to her, because she’s been ignored for so long. Or she’d be excited but scared. For me, personally, when I started doing this practice, I felt the child self was eager for attention and the teen self was suspicious. I imagine that kind of reaction is not uncommon.

E asks us to write a short version of the girl’s story, but told from a third-person narrator. It’s crucial, she explains, for us to take the perspective of the wise inner guide, not the girl. Retelling the story over and over from the perspective of the one who experienced it can be a recipe for re-traumatization. (And in fact, I experienced this to some degree when I was first in therapy with a different therapist.) E says we need to take a step back from the wounded girl. This is something that mindfulness helps us do, because we learn to notice our thoughts and then let go of them, rather than identify with them.

She sends us off that evening with the charge to write up a story about the girl being wounded. We can pick any story and make it more or less detailed, but it should focus on one specific incident, not “she was in a bad marriage for 10 years.”

Doing the assignment. So then I have to think about what story I will write. I know that most women there were at the early stages of doing this work, so I think maybe I should pick something on the lighter end, not too big or intense. I don’t want to overwhelm someone. I don’t want to trigger someone. Who knows what stories they haven’t even allowed themselves to remember yet?

Then I think some more and realize: wait, I spent money to come here for myself. I am not here for them. I am going to work on what I need to work on. E knows where I’m at, and she invited me. If I shake someone up, it will be her job to take care of them, not mine.

So I decide to write about the story with Lee, the one I have been talking about with her recently. It’s a story in which I go along with that friend of my father’s when I was 21 and he just barges into my bedroom one night. I write it up without actually naming body parts or specifying exactly he did this, she did that. But it is clear from my story that I have sex that I didn’t intend or want to have with this man.

And it’s time to get ready for bed. I go to run a bath. I have looked forward to this. A bath at night is a new addition to my nightly routine, designed to help with my horrendous insomnia. The part of the house I am in has a deep, beautiful tub–but tonight, there is no hot water. It’s late, so I give up and crawl into bed.

I toss and turn and sigh. I try to meditate and my mind wanders off. Hours go by. By morning, I have had maybe three hours of interrupted sleep all together. I get up, dress, get a cup of tea.

I am irritated. Why can’t I ever sleep properly? I bet Tabitha still has me on the wrong meds. Why am I here working on a process I have already been using for several years? Why am I going to share a story E already knows about? Why have I even come? This is too expensive, and I can’t really afford it. And the hot water doesn’t even work! And it is weird to have E around so much, I decide. I am afraid I shouldn’t really be here at all.