Page 26 of Collin: Episodes 13-15
What was happening a month ago? He had to count back the weeks.
“I think just over a month ago I woke up naked on the floor of Ms. Linda’s break room bleeding out in Mr. Reevesworth’s lap from a head injury at something like three a.m.”
Broderic blinked twice. He pushed his glasses up with one finger and very carefully took a second look at Collin. “I’m going to assume this is before you moved in with your partners?”
“Oh, most definitely.”
“I can see why your loved ones might be concerned. How did you get hurt?”
Collin grimaced. “Lack of sleep, overwork. Forgot to eat. Slipped and fell.”
“And the naked part?”
“Wasn’t thinking clearly. Was trying to wash something disgusting out of my clothes. I worked at a bar, and a customer spilled something on me. I just had to get it off. It was all I was thinking about.”
“Ah. And do you still work at the bar?”
“No. That was my last shift. Wasn’t planned, but I never went back.”
Broderic tilted his head. “How do you feel about that?”
“Well, I panicked when they put me on bed rest from the concussion. That’s probably why they decided I should see you.”
“You said “they”. Do you want to be here?”
Collin tilted his head to the side. “I’m doing better. A lot better. And I trust my doms. So, if they say I should be here, then I’m going to be here.”
“Is there something specific that you want from therapy?”
Was there? Collin rubbed the underside of his chin with knuckles. “I mean, can therapy change reality? Because there are certain things that just are. And then you have to live with it. Or try to ignore it.”
“How we feel about something that’s happened or is happening or that we expect to happen changes our responses to the situation and how we experience it. So yes, therapy can change our reality by changing our avenues of engaging and crafting story.”
“Story? What does that have to do with reality?”
“Humans are essentially creatures of story. We tell stories to understand ourselves. Say if there’s a little girl who goes onto the playground and has the story in her mind that everyone is going to hate her and the first other little person she meets glares at her and walks away, then she’s proven her story correct. Other people don’t like her. But if that same little girl walks onto the playground and believes that other people might be scared and shy but eventually they are going to like her, she’s going to try again, and eventually, she’ll probably make friends. But unless someone else is present with a story that motivates them to try to make friends with her, she’s not going to make any friends as long as she carries that first story.”
That was a lot to absorb. Silence stretched into the room for a moment. “What about stories like the world inherently doesn’t care about little people and money always wins?”
“Those stories can be changed as well. We’ll never lie in this room. I’m not going to try to tell you that systematic oppression doesn’t exist or that someone born without a hand isn’t at a disadvantage compared to someone born with two working hands. But we can work with the story to make it one that serves us and how we want to live. There are so many stories to choose from and evidence for all of them.”
“And what if there’s a part of me that has absolutely experienced evidence to the contrary? What if I am that negative story? What if I absolutely know the bad story is real?”
“You’re still alive, right?”
“So far.”
“Any plans to kill yourself?”
“No. I rather plan on living as long as I can.”
“Then the story keeps being written. What I do is help you work with the parts of yourself that are stuck in the old stories you want to add on to or rewrite. While I do a lot of different kinds of work, my primary specialty is something called Internal Family Systems, IFS.”
“And you can change the evidence?”
“No.” Broderic shook his head and leaned forward. “Think of it this way. Something really objectively awful happens to you when you’re, say, seven. That part of you that experienced that moment can get sealed in time. It’s in a loop, like a book that’s been written and shut. If you go back to that part of yourself, it has that one incident inside it, and it makes all decisions and has all reactions based on that one moment, what it knows. So, if that moment, going back to our playground story, is of being rejected and not allowed to play with the other kids, then that part of you walks around with the knowledge that other kids won’t play with me.
“And that story follows us into adulthood. We walk into a room, and if that seven-year-old part of us is making the decisions in that moment we enter the room, we drop our eyes, to avoid seeing rejection, which means we aren’t meeting the gaze of anyone who does want to talk to us. We miss the possible moments and continue to feed that seven-year-old part’s story. It gets bigger and bigger and stronger. We trust it because we have so much evidence that they are right. But that part is locked in a moment of pain. It’s not learning. It’s not growing. And when that part is in control of our choices, we’re reacting based on an old situation. That part is just trying to protect us from the pain of rejection. It’s not a bad part. It’s a wounded part, but it’s continuing to hurt and or limit us.”
