So, counselling yesterday was eventful...  Emily's leaving at the end of July.  Apparently, it was a really hard decision, but she's been offered something she can't turn down.

I'm devastated.

She's the first person I've been able to completely trust to talk about anything and everything with, and we've touched on all sorts of things, she knows about the voices inside and she's been wonderful.

She says they'll match me with someone else, and if I want, she can tell the new person all about me...  but it doesn't help.

It still means I have to start over with someone new, and I hate that idea.

I thought I'd try to write a little more from the point of view of these little voices inside me.

There's more than one of them - so far, we found a 13 year old, an 11 year old, a 9 year old and a 7 year old.

The 13 year old is angry at me, and is upset at the situation she's in. She's confused as th abuse has stopped, and she's recently found out that a relationship she enjoyed between her and her grandad involved more than it should.  She doesn't understand why he did those things to her, and she's scared of hurting her grandad, or splitting up the family, and of him going to prison.  She's angry at me for breaking my promises to him, and speaking out, sending him to prison, and breaking up the family.  At the last counselling session, we tried the adult me talking to her to try to explain why I had to speak out, and that made her confused and sad, but she's angry again now.

The 11 year old has just started her periods, and is worried about being abused while on her period, and of the problems that may cause.  She finds the whole thing a bit embarrassing, but doesn't want to have to stop him touching her as that's what he wants.

The 9 year old knows that the abuse hurts sometimes, and she tells grandad when it hurts, but this doesn't stop him. Grandad tells her that she loves him, and he licensed, which is why he does the thing a he does, and she doesn't want to stop that.  She doesn't like the pain though, and now he hurts her more often than not. Sometimes she bleeds after, and that was scary the first few times, especially as she dealt with it by herself.

The 7 year old wants to be loved, and is ecstatic about having a new grandad in her life. She's a bit taken aback with the extra attention, but doesn't think to question it. She's the one who's currently hiding in the rabbit hutch in my recent dream... She feels safe there, and will fight and bite and scream to be left there as she doesn't want to come out.  

This is essentially what came out of my counselling session today.

We spoke about some of the stuff I'd been feeling...  the money, the worry about a year not being long enough, the fact the more we discuss, the more comes up...  and then we got to the little voices.

We got around to this as the littlest voice I have has already planned how to spend the money, but the 13 year old is stressing about why we got it, what it means, and whether or not it's appropriate. 

This lead to further discussion about the voices.  They're so loud at the moment.  The 13 year old is so angry at what I've done.  For the first time, we started a little dialogue, with me telling Emily what the 13 year old part was thinking/feeling/saying, and then the adult part of me being able to reply to her.  It was a bit weird, and I did feel a bit silly, but it did help, and the 13 year old part of me seemed to listen.  Now she seems upset as I've tried to tell her that I had to make the choice I did to save other children, and that she should have been special to him, but in a proper way...  without it being skewed to keep her silence. 

Now, with my counsellor's suggestion, I've bought a notebook that appealed and some coloured pens, and I'm going to try to write out some of this dialogue...  to see where it leads mainly.  I'll keep you posted.

We also spoke about the fact I feel like I'm not coping, and that I want to just grab a couple of close friends, shake them and say "I'm not ok...  I'm struggling here"...  but I'm not sure how I'd explain what's going on.  I mean, little voices, and the way I've been feeling doesn't really explain easily.

For today, this is all I can think about.  I can't try much more today, everything feels too much.  I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of some cliff, and it won't take much more to push me over.  I don't know if it's because I have therapy tomorrow, if it's because I'm tired as it was back to work today...  not sure, just not really coping and feeling like I'm hanging in there by a thread.

This...  at the moment, very much...  this!!  I want to scream at people...  "you think I'm ok, and yet I'm really not".  I want to shout "help me!"  "Help me get through this" and "hold my hand" and "help me stay together" but I can't, and I know I won't.  

I guess over the years, I've got so good at fooling people, and perfecting the mask I wear that no-one notices.  It makes me sad.  I want to reach out and be honest, but I'm scared.  People think I'm strong, and happy...  but I feel weak and sad and low and lonely.  I'm sick of pretending, but I'm scared to stop. 

Thing is, I want someone to listen, and to help me, but I'm not even sure what I'd say.  I just want someone to "get it", but I'm not sure I really know what "it" is. 

I found this today on another blog, and think it's particularly appropriate for how I'm feeling at the moment.  I'm being so hard on myself for not "being over it" and "dwelling on the past".  I'm trying so hard to remember what my counsellor's said about this being a journey, and that it's not over yet.

I think I was hoping that, after the court case, everything would be put to bed.  I thought it would be a few sessions of counselling to put things finally to rest, and that would be it.  It seems though, that the more counselling I have, the more issues are being brought up to deal with.  I worry that I'm running out of time with Emily.  I have less that a year with her left, and what if that's not enough time??  I'm stressing already that everything won't be dealt with, and I'm worried that'll stop me bringing things up to be dealt with at all.