I've been planning to write this post for a long time but have been unable to muster the energy to do justice to something so meaningful to me. So I've finally decided I'm not going to try to make it perfect or beautiful. I'm just going to do my best to roughly sketch it out with the hope of building on it later.
There's a place that has become extremely important to me. It's a space of healing, refuge and connection. It can sometimes be quiet and peaceful: a space to think and feel my feelings in a sheltered protected environment, or it can be fun and social: a space to safely connect, laugh and dance around without having to fear the world outside its walls.
Strictly speaking, it doesn't exist, but it's become very real to me, and I'm on a quest to find ways to make it more so.
In my ongoing struggle to cope with my trauma and all that I've lost because of it, I've always found great strength and sustenance in metaphors. Some of my metaphors are quite dark, but are useful to me in helping me to hold on even in an impossibly painful situation.
But this one is beautiful to me.
It all started in therapy. Loosely inspired by some of what I'd learned about IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy, I had a grim vision of the plight of a single "part" of myself.
It was a little girl part of myself with every bone in her body broken. Her limbs were contorted and her vocal cords severed. She was unable to lift her head or speak. She was in constant overwhelming pain with no hope of healing or functioning. Yet she also couldn't die (as much as I often wished she would). Her only skill was suffering. It was her superpower: there was no amount of it she could not endure. Despite her lack of outward efficacy, the intensity of her suffering had a powerful impact on the rest of me. Her pain could send tsunami-like waves through every other part of me like some unstoppable punishing force. I hated her and felt her hatred of me directed back at me with enormous universe-destroying intensity. Every move I made, every thought I had, took place in her shadow. She would punish me for all of it. In fairness to her, I could sense that from her perspective, any slight movement that I made, every thought, even the slightest breath, would jostle her and cause her pain to increase unbearably. She had to be harsh since even the slightest movement was indeed a threat to her.
And that's where I was when I started therapy: unable to safely do anything, think anything, hope anything, or feel anything because every part of me was at the mercy of her excruciating rumbling. I had to constantly hold her tightly to control her quaking as best I could at the same time as I had to try not to wake her. We were tightly interlocked in the most twisted painful embrace while also hating and trying our best to get whatever distance we could from each other.
Her rumblings would come through in my everyday life. At one point, my hands would shake when I tried to eat my lunch so much that I sometimes couldn't get my fork to my mouth.
The other issue was that the broken little girl part of me was not prepared to let anyone help me manage the situation. Any intervention could run the risk of jostling her around further when she was already twisted into painful knots. She couldn't risk it and wouldn't allow me to do so.
I'll skip a bunch of exposition here and leap ahead to how the "healing" space became possible in the face of this horrible dynamic and what it has meant for me. I found a mental health professional I felt safe in trusting, and most miraculously, she felt safe in trusting. I could feel her soften slightly to give me permission to seek support in that therapy space. This was a big deal because if she didn't feel safe, I would have been punished for seeking help, for allowing someone else to see and possibly painfully, maybe even catastrophically, interfere in our painful complicated predicament.
As time went by, and the space grew safer, I could sense her relaxing a bit more. She still couldn't speak or lift her head, and was still in constant pain, but I could feel her ease up a bit in the presence of support, while listening intently, and eventually seeming to open her eyes a bit to look around.
Then one day, I described an image that came to me in a therapy session. I felt like there were two parts of me that had been suffering a shared fate. There was the broken part of me I've described, and also another part of me. I described her as an "older little girl part" (though I now wonder if she is actually a younger but less broken part). The stronger part had been carrying the broken one for decades, stumbling over difficult terrain, never able to take a break or put her down. Occasionally, she tried to ask for help and it made things worse. So she wasn't allowed to seek support anymore.
But looking back on how the support, hard work, and care of therapy had helped me, I explained that it was like those two core parts of myself had arrived at an inn in the midst of the dark woods with a kind, understanding and safe person watching over it. Finally that stronger little girl part of me was able to put that broken little girl part of me down somewhere safe and sheltered where she could rest on a stable, comfortable surface and no longer be jostled around painfully.
The next thing that came to me was maybe a bit strange in its arbitrary specificity, but also very powerful for me: "I have this image that the stronger little girl can now sit down at the table in the inn, and she gets to eat a sandwich!"
In that moment, that imaginary sandwich and the safe surroundings in which it could be enjoyed felt like the most magical thing ever. It was nourishing, comforting and protective.
And that's how "the sandwich house" was born for me. But that's not how it remained.
When I subsequently had to face something difficult, a task that scared me and brought back that terrifying frustrating shaking feeling, I had some inspiration that helped me survive it: I'll just imagine that I've been given the keys to the sandwich house (which I envisioned as sitting vacant between therapy sessions) so I can go there whenever I need to. And I'll imagine that I can take my difficult task to that same table where I'd enjoyed the sandwich and work on it there while the broken part of me is resting on her safe surface." To make it feel more real, I created a music playlist (that I'm listening to now) called "sandwiches and safety" to help summon the felt sense of the sandwich house for me.
I excitedly said to a dear friend (who had entered my life when the idea of the sandwich house had recently come to me), "I have to tell you about my sandwich house!" After enthusiastically explaining it to her in great depth, I joked that I had the keys to it so we could go hang out there and eat sandwiches whenever we wanted. During the day, when we wanted to connect, we'd text each other "do you have time for a sandwich?" and then call each other from that imagined shared space.
The sandwich house had initially been called into being as a metaphor for my therapy relationship and the safe space it offered me to explore my painful inner dynamic, but it became so much more (while retaining that original meaning as well). At first I saw it as a space held by my therapist that I'd been allowed to enter temporarily while those messed up parts of me rested and prepared for their ongoing journey as they were supplied with tools, nourishment, and care. Then it became a place I was permitted to visit on my own between sessions while the "innkeeper"/therapist was away to access that sense of safety and connection on my own. Then it evolved into a place into which I could invite my friend to hang out with me to share in its shelter and comforts. Recently, my friend and I joked that we had taken over the sandwich house. It no longer was my therapist's space the way it first appeared. It was our space now. My therapist was still welcome there and the sandwich house still represented the safety of that connection, but that was now only one part of its larger unfolding significance.
When my beloved rescue cocker spaniel Layton died in a traumatic way a few months ago (days after a lung cancer diagnosis at the young age of 10), I was devastated. Something that deeply comforted me was an image that came to me of how my dogs (Layton, and also my hound dog Mac, who had died less than a year earlier) had been by the side of those two wandering little girl parts of me during the most recent leg of their difficult journey. I had mistakenly pictured those wandering parts traveling that horrible path all on their own but I now felt certain that my dogs had helped guide them to the sandwich house. I recalled how my dogs had been with me during therapy sessions while I made sure the new setting (that developed into the sandwich house) was truly safe.
And now that they could no longer be physically with me, that's where they would be. I laughed because I knew exactly what Layton would be doing there while he waited for me: "He is climbing onto the table and eating all the sandwiches!"
I half-seriously planned to write a book or essay called "Sandwiches and Squeaky Balls" to explore that metaphor in relation to my dogs. I haven't done it yet and it's possible I never will but the idea brought me some strength and solace in my grief.
So that's the sandwich house. When my friends have gone through a tough time, sometimes I've found myself saying, "If it helps you can go to my sandwich house!" and I've tried to explain it but have fallen short. So this is my effort to provide a somewhat fuller (but still inadequate) explanation.
When I think of people who are suffering who feel alone in coping with their trauma, I find myself wishing that I could invite them to visit the sandwich house. I can't promise it will be helpful to everyone but it has helped me so much, so maybe others might find a sense of vicarious comfort there too.
That's the basic, perhaps somewhat silly and childlike idea that has given me so much stability, sustenance, connection, peace, and sometimes even joy as I've tried my best to cope and/or "heal." It isn't some happy perfect ending. There is still so much pain and difficulty, and sometimes the image feels so unreal and far away, but the shelter and beauty that I see in my sandwich house have been so meaningful for me.
I wish I could have done a better job of describing it since the sandwich house has become so much more than what I've been able to share here, but I just wanted to do a quick update of what to me has been an extremely positive development for me in my ongoing "healing" journey (spoiler alert: the sandwich house is more real to me than the concept of "healing," which tends to be very complicated and troubling to me).
As for the title of this blog post ("Meet Me at the Sandwich House"), perhaps the sandwich house may not seem like a lot to many people, in which case there is no pressure to join me in the idea. Perhaps you already have an even better space of your own. But if you don't have a place like that or would like the option of stopping by and sharing in mine, please feel free to drop in sometime. The only catch is that you'll have to share your sandwiches with the cocker spaniel who is sprawled out on the table and the dear old hound dog underneath, who will nudge your hand repeatedly until you share. Please tell them that they are such good boys, that I love them very much, and that they can have as many sandwiches as they want.....
-Drawings below of different possible of the Sandwich House by Sadie Kitson ❤️
-Image of Mac, Layton, and Kiki, who are waiting for me at the Sandwich House (along with Persephone, Heathcliff, Lily and Others
As always, please note that I am a lawyer, not a mental health professional of any kind. I have no expertise in trauma or mental health. Also, please note that any opinions and views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are not intended to represent the views or opinions of my employer in any way.
Thank you. I'll bring extra sandwiches for the doggos.
ReplyDeleteAwww, yes the dogs will love that and you are welcome to join us there anytime xo
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