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• I’ve decided to go for the long haul and have chosen psychodynamic psychotherapy. I’m already on my fifth session. I want to look deeper than the immediate problem of my son. I hope it is going to be an exploration of my childhood and first family, key romantic relationships and the patterns in them, my second family, and hopes for my third.
  
  What do I want to achieve? To gain some insights into why I do the things I do and why I feel and react the way I do. To look at the stuff I’m not happy with and to work on acceptance and forgiveness for the bits I can’t change. Phew, not asking much then!
  
  I wonder how many sessions it’ll take before I accept that I am doing therapy and that it is a legitimate thing to do. It’s a meeting with a stranger in an unfamiliar part of the city where I pour out my most intimate thoughts.
  
  As the front door closes behind me I have an overwhelming feeling of ridiculousness. Sometimes it is almost as if I am watching myself on film. Self-indulgent middle-aged woman arrives for her weekly session of navel gazing. No gushing hello kisses and how are yous.
  
  A polite ‘Hi’ and we silently climb the four flights to the therapy room. I always seem to get to the top ages before she does, even when I’m trying to go slowly. ‘Do I go too fast?’ ‘I’m pacing myself,’ she says. I think we’ve touched on our first insight.
  
  What am I bringing with me today? I’m not sure if I’m meant to prepare a topic in advance or just the thing that’s uppermost in my mind (to remember to pop into Aldi on the way home as we’re out of toilet rolls). I’ve been doing some reading on attachment theory. I believe I fall into the dismissive or avoidant category – that figures, based on what I know of my early childhood.
  
  But what do I remember of my childhood at all? How much of it is family myth based on photos or other people’s stories, which are just a result of their interpretation and selective memories anyway?
  
  I have been told that I wouldn’t go down for a nap after lunch, so I would be put in a pram at the end of the garden where I would scream all afternoon. Out of earshot, out of mind. ‘Does this make you feel abandoned?’ If you mean now, no it doesn’t. My mother would have to have had intent and she was only doing what people of her time and background did. I feel disappointed that she didn’t have the intellectual ability to challenge expected norms and think for herself. I feel upset that my cries didn’t melt her heart.
  
  Back then, did I feel abandoned? Does a baby have a concept of abandonment? Perhaps I felt frightened or confused, but if a pattern started there, most likely I felt angry.
  
  I was left to get on with it as a child. I had to. I could. I did out of sheer bloody mindedness, to show them that I didn’t need them anyway. And later because I didn’t want to toe the family line. So now my adult relationships are characterised by fierce independence. Men who show a need for interdependency make me want to bolt. It would mean trusting someone and running the risk of being let down. Again.
  
  ‘You are telling me that you do not feel as though you were held in their heads. That your needs weren’t met.’ At least I think that’s what she said. I reflect back on my sessions and I find it hard to remember what she did say. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. I obviously don’t listen well enough. Or my memory could just be shot. (Soon none of this will matter, as I won’t remember what happened yesterday.) Perhaps my therapist is just so skilful that her interjections slip seamlessly into my stream of consciousness and I feel as though I am asking myself the questions or making the links.
  
  I wonder if I am making any progress at all. I realise I’m in panic mode. I jump from thought to memory to feeling. I am trying to make sense of half a century in a matter of weeks.
  
  So far I have only given my therapist a confused introduction. Now the hard work begins. I need to pace myself. Listen. Breathe.
  
  Next time I’ll start by walking up the stairs behind her.
  
  
  

• Names and details have been changed to protect identities