Anya
Anya came to therapy but was never in therapy, dutifully attending our
appointments in body but emotionally buried under the weight of her
depression.
She was a considerate, cautious, gentle young woman, a writer by trade. I
understood her struggle but, at times, found her company to be draining and
effortful. In her attempts to be pleasing in therapy, she would adopt a position
of subservience to me. She’d try to Classic please me by writing me short
stories and bringing me books. She would sit in near silence for fifty minutes
without making eye contact and then email me an apology afterwards, for
failing me, or upsetting me, or for not answering my questions honestly
enough. She’d do the same to her girlfriend and, for fear of upsetting her,
Anya would hide behind a wall, making it impossible for her girlfriend to
reach her.
She was afraid that if she said or did the wrong thing in our sessions, I
would tell her we couldn’t work together any more. Paralysed by her
Pacifier patterns, she feared rejection and would keep her feelings and
darkness to herself and then feel scared that I would think she had wasted my
time.
She was the client I’d discuss in my clinical supervision more than any
other at that time. My reactions to her weren’t simply my own feelings of
frustration, they were feelings transferred onto me as a reflection of the way
she organised the whole world to react. She’d try so hard to not displease
anyone that she frustrated everyone with her blocks and her defences. She
tried to hide her painful feelings for fear of losing those she cared for, but her
resulting depression created the greater divide.
It was easy to understand from the fragments of the history that she shared
why she would be so afraid of rejection, and her early memories were hard
to hear. Once, she told me, she’d broken a glass or spilt something (she
couldn’t remember which, because she was only three or four) and her
parents responded by packing her belongings in a little suitcase and
depositing them, and her, outside on the doorstep. She remembered sitting
next to her suitcase, understanding that she wasn’t allowed to live there any
more but not knowing what to do. Eventually her parents opened the door and
let her come back in. ‘They wanted to teach me a lesson,’ she said, numbly.
There were many examples like this, times in which her parents had made
her feel terrified that any wrong move could see her sent away. It was
heartbreaking to listen to and yet, counter-intuitively, my role had to be more
than just a reassuring voice of nurture now. She’d had plenty of those over
the years but they just set her up to feel beholden, grateful for the compassion
at the time but all the more fearful of losing it again should she ever make a
mistake. My acceptance of her had to be unconditional, which meant I would
never disapprove of her as her parents had but I couldn’t give her my
approval either, she needed to be free of the weight of my approval
altogether to look inside for her own. It took time and we had to help her feel
secure enough to emotionally emerge at all, before we could even
contemplate the prospect of rejection. One day, she brought in a carefully
crafted poem that she’d written about me. It was undoubtedly beautiful. It felt
like a cat depositing a mouse at its owner’s feet, searching in earnest for
praise and validation, and we used it to bring her attention to the relationship
between us. ‘What would it be like,’ I began, ‘if I was pleased with you … if
I appreciated your gift … if I felt that you were working hard here?’
She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Well … it would feel good, I guess?’
I continued gently, ‘So then … what if I didn’t? What if I wasn’t pleased
with you or I didn’t want your gift … how would that be?’ She cowered as
she experienced the possibility that she hadn’t pleased me and couldn’t
please me, that she couldn’t earn her place and was powerless once again,
left sitting on the doorstep. We explored what it would be like for her to put
down her pleasing patterns when she came to therapy, to take a brief reprieve
from the code she followed in the rest of her life, to be pleasing, silent and
submissive. We worked together to understand what it would be like to
feelaccepted by me, for who she was, not for what she did or didn’t do, and
withthis understanding we brought in the possibility for change.
Our work began anew after this, more authentically and more
meaningfully. Anya was afraid that her girlfriend would abandon her if
shedispleased her, but trying to manage her girlfriend’s feelings had left
Anya ill-equipped to take care of her own and the depression that had
formed intheir place was the far greater threat to their relationship.
Anya came to therapy to learn how to please herself and practised
releasing herself fromfeeling responsible for her girlfriend’s feelings,
by releasing herself from feeling responsible for mine.
You’re welcome
Let’s take a moment to hear from the part of you that you keep hidden from
others, the part of you that you believe to be unacceptable.
What is the worst thing someone could know about you?
Perhaps there is a feeling or a thought or an urge that you rule out
asshameful or mean or ridiculous.
The same rule applies, whether you go to therapy or not. Nothing
youthink or feel is unacceptable, it is all part of being human and all
of youis welcome. Let yourself tell your own story, if only to yourself
at first.It might help you to get behind those initial defences of fear or
guilt and find out what it is you truly feel and what you really need.
And, if you choose to help someone else who is caught in a pattern
of people-pleasing, you might offer them this same acceptance, to
listen to their story for its meaning, with curiosity not judgment.
