23rd May 2025.

The 23rd of May has been an an overly significant date, too many times! Without doubt memory is the key to trauma and I'm really grateful for the EMDR I received over a year ago now. The trigger memory for treatment was the sound of the gate and my husband standing there. Waves of disapproval rolling off him, telling me I should not be burning things in the garden. Later that night he would be tricked into going round to her house. 

Where her husband was waiting...

His car was a write off afterwards. 

The photo of that car, windscreen smashed, reminds me of how much better I felt once I'd got the truth. Something had to give, something breached, secrecy destroyed. Gaslighting ended. The earth was the earth once more, the sky only sky...

Truth, even the worst truth is so much better than lies.

But the 23rd. And memories. Between the garden gate and the car, there is the tree. The memory joins and flows into the feeling of walking out of Kit's room for the last time on the 23rd.

The end, Muxia...too close.

No smashed car moment, no sense of finally getting the truth. As I sat by the tree, as I walked away from his room...

After my husband had returned with the click of the gate, that evening we had walked to a golden field high on a hill. But the loss of trust in him, how he spoke to me, everything was too much. 

I walked away, I wanted to be lost. I was exhausted and sat down by a mossy, tree I wanted to die. This is the effect of gaslighting, of having my trust in myself, in my feelings about and view of reality broken up and trampled upon.

This is what the therapist is doing too. And it is so easy for the perpetrators to defend it!

In the present I'm observing the consequences of a 'reparative' relationship through the eyes of a friend -  David. He has worked intensely with a woman who came to therapy to heal from gaslighting...but now David doesn't understand why she asks him what he is feeling, and why she is making the atmosphere so uncomfortable for him.

David doesn't think that she could have those kinds of feelings about him. And he is genuinely puzzled by the emotional turbulence of their sessions.

It looks like therapists, or specifically male therapists honestly can't acknowledge that clients really can fall in love with them.

And I simply can't believe that they are not aware..

I really need to interview David and James!

There are other kinds of transference - traumatic transference in particular will cause confusing and conflicting energies in the room.

Asking about 'erotic transfer'...

It feels quite transgressive though. 

To ask...

Both men, both therapists, are extremely nurturing and aim only to empower their clients. James certainly didn't have erotic feelings about his client. But was that even what was going on? All I know is, he had to end the sessions.

So I think I'm back to the idea of long term, reparative work as potentially detrimental. Risking dependency, and undoing any good if specifically the presence of the erotic isn't recognised and honoured! 

Thinking about my view makes me feel like I'm standing on thin ice. The relationship is what heals, we know this. So I don't like picking away at it. 

But on the other hand it seems pretty important to create clarity beyond cliché, and sentimentality. 

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