Five #3
“I’m not sure I understand how the exercise reauthored trauma,” Brooke pressed, and Gillian could’ve hugged her for displaying even a fraction of the skepticism coursing through her own veins at that completely lackluster explanation of playing with someone else’s hair.
“Or why a more traditional form of therapy couldn’t have worked? ”
“She’d already done tremendous work in therapy, both throughout her mother’s illness and in the aftermath of her death.
I’m not sure we could’ve achieved the same results without her deeply understanding the trauma and where it lay in her body, but neither could a therapist bridge the gaps that came from disconnecting an intellectual awareness from her physical experience since her brain and body weren’t working in tandem. ”
“I think we’ve all run into disconnects between theory and practice,” Tegan mused.
“And to be fair, parental touch is virtually impossible to replicate on your own.” Daphne’s voice remained even and gently confident in a way Gillian could appreciate even if she found her assertions questionable.
“It took almost a year to reestablish the connection between memories of her mother’s emotional nurturing with physical sensation of nurturing touch.
Only then could we connect the kind of care and grace she was offering herself in those moments to the kind of nurturing she’d been able to offer her mom at the end, which transformed a circle of trauma to one of nurturing. ”
“Wow.” Tegan’s eyes watered as she reached for Brooke’s hand.
“That one hits hard. When something ends badly but you still have so much good mixed in, it’s nearly impossible to make all the pieces fit together.
You feel guilty for remembering the bad, but you don’t fully trust the good.
Soon you don’t even trust yourself to know which is which. ”
“Exactly.” Daphne beamed at her, and Gillian felt the twinge of a new emotion she tried to push behind her most logical brain.
There were holes in Daphne’s explanations big enough for whole humans to slip through.
Of course therapists could help reestablish mind-body connections.
There were also appropriate and well-governed paths for physical therapy, but having a person work through trauma with someone who’d been trained only to hug, or hadn’t been trained at all …
“Obviously, my client could’ve told stories to her therapist, and she could’ve sought touch from others,” Daphne went on, as if anticipating the argument Gillian hadn’t yet given voice to. “I simply gave her an opportunity to exist safely in the fullness of both instead of fragmenting her needs.”
“What an incredibly compelling example,” Brooke said, then dropped a kiss atop Tegan’s head. “I’m sure we all have plenty more questions, but this a good primer, and I want to be mindful of the fact that we derailed your evening plans.”
“Be honest,” Robin prodded, seemingly in no hurry to rush things along. “You’re just ready to go home and play with T-Cup’s hair, aren’t you?”
Brooke’s shrug told Gillian her best friend had been called out. “A valid possibility. Though if anyone makes a mothering joke, I’ll never speak to you again.”
Robin held up her hands in surrender. “I’m so blissed out I can’t even think of a witty response.”
“And I’d never do anything to exacerbate my own discomfort.” Gillian surrendered to the path of least resistance since she’d obviously not be getting any backup from her colleagues tonight.
“Good call.” Tegan turned to Daphne. “Unless there’s anything else you think we should know to help us become better neighbors?”
Daphne sighed, and her whole body went a little slack. “The fact that you asked that, or asked any of the things you have, means so much to me. If we can bring a sense of openness and curiosity to all our interactions, we’ll foster a fantastic working environment.”
Gillian’s jaw tightened as she glanced around to see if anyone else felt the same way about being lumped into someone else’s work environment.
Thinking of Daphne as a neighbor pushed her boundaries as far as she dared, but considering her as some sort of partner, especially while she cradled Robin’s head between her knees, ratcheted up Gillian’s unease to the point where she could no longer bite her tongue.
“Our business comes with legal and ethical concerns about privacy and holding sacred the spaces we create with individuals. Those constraints don’t lend themselves to a larger collective office environment. ”
Robin gave her a look of confusion, then turned to include Brooke and Tegan, who both raised their eyebrows in some sort of telepathic exchange of questions.
Gillian’s cheeks warmed as she realized she’d once again fallen back on professional speak rather than addressing her concerns head-on. She didn’t blame her friends for not knowing how to react, but she couldn’t quite drop her guard enough to speak plainly around Daphne.
She liked her job, she clung to her work, and she didn’t want to compromise her guiding principles because some touchy-feely pseudosociology Earth Mother moved in across the hall. What was wrong with maintaining professional standards?
Or was she trying to maintain something else?
She may not love discomfort, but she didn’t think of herself as a coward or lacking in self-awareness, so with a deep breath and a slow release, Gillian checked in with her gut, trying to coax her most genuine response to the surface.
Was it fear? Embarrassment? Concern? “I guess, first and foremost, I’d like to know what we’re supposed to tell our clients is happening in the room with the big bed, so it doesn’t undermine the gravity or seriousness we’ve tried to build around our existing practice.”
“Ah.” Daphne nodded knowingly, as though Gillian had confirmed some deeply held suspicion.
“Obviously, you can formulate any answer that feels authentic, but I’d suggest a brief summation along the lines of, ‘Human’s need touch.
Period. Barring conditions like sensory disorders, regular physical connection is a fundamental requirement of healthy development, and most of us get that need met through existing relationships with parents, partners, or friends.
However, there are a myriad of reasons people either don’t receive, or cannot allow themselves to accept, platonic touch. That’s where I come in.’”
It was said evenly, clearly, concisely, and logically enough that Gillian couldn’t exactly argue with any of the specific promises, which meant the heavy, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn’t based in the foundational logic, and she certainly didn’t want to examine anything beyond that with an audience, so she nodded curtly. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Brooke nudged gently.
She sighed and lifted her hands slightly before letting them fall limp back to her sides. “If that’s the party line, I’ll practice delivering it before next week.”
Robin grimaced before sitting up. “Do you want to talk about anything else?”
“No,” she said quickly, then corrected her tone. “I need to wrap my head around things. I’m sure I’ll have more to say when I’ve had adequate time to process.”
Tegan glanced at Daphne almost apologetically. “She has a very big brain, lots of stuff in there.”
“I know,” Daphne said, a hint of her trademark amusement creeping back in. “I’m familiar with her quiet mental machinations.”
Gillian rolled her eyes. “What a lovely note to end on.”
Daphne laughed. “Go ahead and make a list or a spreadsheet of concerns, and when you’re ready, we’ll have all the conversations.”
“Yeah.” Robin hopped off the bed. “She’s going to be right across the hall. We can talk about all the things whenever we want!”
“Great,” Gillian said with forced enthusiasm, then made herself add, “I appreciate the grace,” when what she wanted to say was she’d rather rip out her own cuticles with her teeth than make nights like tonight a regular occurrence.