People I Know: Stacey's Story

This is another story about people I know:

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I need to be careful when I write about clients. There are ethics and confidentiality that I take very seriously. And there’s also the fact that some of the details of their lives are just not palatable for my blog friends and visitors. But as a writer it’s hard not to put some stories into form, and this is one of them.

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First a warning: I’ll avoid details, but the history is brutal.

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Stacey is now 48. Two of her siblings have committed suicide and her remaining older sister is chronically mentally ill. So is Stacey. But she’s married, mother to four sons, grandmother to the two year old light of her life.

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Stacy’s childhood was torturous, abusive, neglectful, horrible. Often I have to ask her to stop the retelling because I feel sick. We’re straddling understanding and accepting the past and replacing that story with her life today and her hopes for the future. This is not easy. Stacey’s childhood IS her story, and she’s afraid she may cease to exist if she forgets it.
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She told me she was a wreck her first day of kindergarten because she did not know the way home. She got out of school and was so afraid. And alone. No one met her or looked out for her. She was five years old and was helped by a stranger who saw her crying on the street. When she finally got home, her mother called her stupid and pathetic. No more details needed.
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Well, to make a long story shorter, Stacey and I are working on her being able to access a “safe place” when these horrible recollections and memories overtake her, which is often. We’re using this visualization I call ‘escalator’, where she closes her eyes and I count down from 10 to one, each number carrying her further down on an escalator until she steps into to a beautiful place. For Stacey (it’s different for everyone), Jesus is waiting for her and he hugs and holds her. She is safe in the light.
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So I asked Stacey if maybe the little girl that she used to be could go to the safe place with her sometime. Here’s what happened next, in Stacey’s words:

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“I went down the escalator and Jesus was holding the little girl. She ran to me and I opened my arms and told her I would protect her. She told me please don’t make her go home to that house anymore and I didn’t know what to say. My husband told me later I should have told her I’d take her for ice cream, but I didn’t know what to do. She ran away but I called to her and told her I would help her. I felt bad that she ran away from me."

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The next time I did escalator my little girl was waiting for me at the bottom. She was standing beside Jesus and she ran up to me and I hugged her tight. .I told her I would take her to school and show her the way home. I waited outside the school all day until she got out. She begged me, please, can I go home with you instead, and I told her yes, but you have to know the way to your house first so we’ll walk that way and then I’ll take you to my house. I held her hand and told her she did not have to be afraid of her mother, that I would care for her.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about things I can do with her, help her have the childhood she never had. It feels so empowering. Like I can be her mother and keep her safe.”
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This is me, kj, speaking again. You know what? We all have little kids inside us. And we can all give them what they didn’t get.

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I have to tell you that watching Stacey start this process—mothering her terrified sweet little girl--is so gratifying it’s incredible. I’m no magician, and I’m not up for counselor of the year, but this “re-creation” seems so basic. That is, if we suspend being logical and realistic and tight assed adults for long enough to let the child within be heard.

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Stacey’s going to be playing with that little girl of hers, and in the doing the most horrible sadistic mother in her past will be slowly, lovingly replaced. And even though those horrific memories can't be erased, they can be reframed and recast. Stacey's found a tool, and she's using it...