#haptotherapy

[sae-something]

do you know why ht can't touch your back if you're okay with hugs?

Nope! I've actually been reading through old emails with HT the last half hour (answering the previous ask about hiding under the table) and it's come up in emails to HT repeatedly.

The fact that I can handle (and even love) hugs from friends, but experience instant panic in the back/neck area with HT is wonderful food for denial. See: if I can handle it sometimes, surely I'm making it all up!

Except in my daily life, in my functional self with my friends, my body is far away. The hypothesis is that something in my body reacts to the back/neck thing. When I first told A about it, she immediately made a suggestion about what it could be, and to be honest it was so shocking to me that I don't think we ever spoke about it again.

When I'm very tense, feeling really bad, or otherwise vulnerable (e.g. certain parts activated internally), I tense up when friends hug me as well. The response just isn't as strong as with HT, but I think that is because with HT (and with A, but obviously this is not an issue there bc no touch) I feel safe enough to let go some of the strict control that I (or some other parts idk) generally have over all impulses and urges and reactions from other parts.

Something with the body keeping the never-ending score, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe I'll learn more about it at some point, maybe not.

[sae-something]

what did ht do when you hid under the table?I did that once in therapy lol

It's years ago now that it happened, pretty sure it was before covid hit even so it must've been within the first year of seeing HT.

In the moment I didn't know what had happened - I know I was sitting on the table with HT, doing haptotherapy stuffs. And then I was terrified and sitting under the table.

HT later told me it was a matter of seconds. Thankfully she had registered what triggered me (a baby in the building next door started crying).

I don't remember what HT did exactly. I'm pretty sure she remained calm, made some soothing noises. Now that I think of it, I think whatever part was frightened kept trying to curl in on herself in an attempt to 'hide more' and then HT got me a blanket to hide under. I think HT came sit on the floor as well (so she wasn't 'looking down on me') - but at a safe distance, she'd never just start touching me in a triggered state like that.

If I remember correctly, she mostly just worked on soothing me and helping me come back a bit from the intense triggered response. It was only in the next session that she told me what the trigger had been.

[sae-something]

Thanks for answering! Would you be up for answering how ht works with touch and your body in that way? Do you think working with ht maybe made your body come alive in therapy too?

Hey anon,

I'm sorry it took me a while to get to this question, I want to be able to really answer it. Hopefully you'll still see this reply :)

First of all, working with HT has absolutely contributed to my body coming alive. When I first started seeing HT, almost four years ago, I'd joke that I preferred to be "a head on feet"; I didn't want anything to do with the whole body in between. (It sounds cuter in Dutch lmao - hoofd op pootjes). When I get very stuck in my head, HT still sometimes says - "Hey head, where are you going with Sae?".

Anyway. Despite having a friend that had been doing haptotherapy for years, I really didn't know what to expect when I started seeing HT. Haptotherapists have a 'table' much like a physiotherapist. I think often people lay down, but I've never gotten to that point because laying down feels entirely too scary and vulnerable.

Often HT would put up the head-end of the table and offer me some pillows so I could sit there. She'd sit on the feets-end with her legs off of the side, facing me. In the beginning we did a lot of HT touching my feet/lower legs, she'd just put her hand there (not move) and we'd do exercises along the lines of whether I could feel her hand, if I could give pressure with my foot in her hand, how that felt, etc.

(HT insists that it took a couple months before I even allowed her to touch me; I insist that I immediately let her touch me. Our middle ground is that I enthusiastically dived in and let her touch me, but that it took a long while before I could feel it without immediately tensing up and dissociating)

I don't remember why, but after a while we gave up on the table. I don't think I was able to make a lot of progress. I still can't really handle HT touching more than my feet/lower legs. Turns out I absolutely love hand-holding though... it's as if my feelings start flowing and moving around as soon as HT holds my hand. It feels like a life line sometimes, to be able to hold her hand as I move through feelings.

The most valuable thing for me is that HT is not only extremely in tune with her own body (duh), but also with me - my body, my feelings. She often notices things or feels things before I become aware of them. It's the small things that she just mentions, and over the years it's helped me become aware. For instance last thursday when I'd shared something emotional with her, HT warmly warned me: "don't get scared if you go offline now" as I felt my self freezing up. She asks me to move my head, move a finger, feel my feet.

We've also done a lot of sitting on the floor with a lot of pillows. Being able to scoot away, scoot closer, move around a bit - it took me at least a year I wanna guess to get there, but it means so much now. HT notices every held back movement and asks what's happening.

HT is also a trained... something with young children, I don't know the English word (orthopedagoog). She works with parents/carers and children when children struggle. E.g. after trauma, attachment issues, etc. So HT has a bunch of duplo/playmobil toys and sometimes we use those and I get to explain internal experiences that way. We often pick one toy to represent the body and whenever I tell something, HT will ask me: where is the body in this?

Often after some emotionally draining stuff I'm very exhausted. HT knows that some young parts - specifically Pip - love some "resting time" at the end. At that point HT will sit with her back to the wall and a pillow in her lap and I get to position myself in a way that feels safe (with a lot of scared "don't touch my back, don't accidentally do it, okay?" and HT holding her hands up in the air to show me shes not touching me lmao). I usually lay down with my head in her lap and then I place one of HT's hands on my forehead, and I hold her other hand.

Sometimes it's a calming/resting thing, sometimes body stuff happens and the body tenses a lot. HT helps me through it. Often a lot of small questions come out. The amount of times HT has answered the questions "do you think I'm dirty? are you getting sick from touching me?" and "if I feel like I cry but I have no tears do you still believe me?" and "why are you still here?" and all of that. I think some of these things have been settling though. I feel a lot more secure and even some of the young parts feel different now and have changed the phrasing of their questions - for example it's turned into "you don't think I'm dirty, right?", which is a big difference.

Anyway. There's SO much more to tell here. One time HT handed an angry part boxing gloves, one time a trigger happened and I hid under the table, one time we walked up and down the room a lot in an exercise for me to feel what the room did to my body. A couple times I got extremely triggered (by something happening outside HT's or mine control) and the sessions were spent trying to connect despite my extreme dysregulation. We also shortly experimented if I could handle pillows touching my back (because I panic whenever HT even accidentally touches my back/neck), but even if she touched my back through a pillow I still got too dysregulated.

Because I see HT once every two weeks, often at the beginning of sessions I need 10-ish minutes to just... relax into the session. "Find my way back" to HT and the room there, so to say.

I'm gonna stop rambling here, but more questions (or more specific ones) are very welcome :) I do enjoy sharing about this and sometimes that's a bunch easier when there's a prompt!

I hope you're having a nice weekend, anon 💜

[sae-something]

Follow-up thoughts after I read over my previous post.

I mentioned recharging my batteries. I don't know which batteries, but I guess it doesn't matter for now.

Recharging my batteries with HT is simple. It's part of our routine by now. The last 10 (or more) minutes of the session is recharging time - I know it, HT knows it. It's laying down with HT holding my head with one hand, and holding my hand with her other. It's Pip time, too.

I always get sleepy and then when I'm putting on my shoes and we're doing session planning, we're both yawning. When I yawn and HT yawns in response, it feels like connection. Yawning has never been so intimate.

I wish for an easy recharge. I don't know yet how to recharge with A, because mostly it just costs me. And leaving is always hard - either because I'm having feelings, or because parts of me want to put their feet down and refuse to leave without having their needs met. And then I have to go out in the cold and do the long cycle.

When leaving after a session with HT, sometimes I shudder when I get outside because it's cold. But it's cold because I'm warm. Of course it took a long time to get to this point with HT. And the touch-y aspect definitely helps.

I wish A could give me some of the recharging HT can give me. I'm scared A will interpret my email as "this needs to be a light session". I don't need a light session. I need a heavy session where I can have feelings, where different parts of me can feel heard and supported. And then it needs to be warmly wrapped up so I can get through the next 2,5 weeks.

I just don't think A and I are at a point yet where this is possible though. I also don't know if A can do this at all. I don't even know if it's a healthy or good thing to want/achieve.

[sae-something]

FEELINGS man. Why do these things need to be so complex. Unnecessarily rude if you ask me.

One second I was sobbing and telling HT "can't you see how bad I am! i'm filthy! why can't you see!" and the next I was giggling and asking if she would hold my head and chatting about the monkey plushies.

At least in 30-ish hours it'll be friday and a lot of tension will be gone. I'll have dinner with my downstairs neighbour tonight. Go to bed. Sleep. Tomorrow morning I'll work. Then I'll have a short (30 minute, she didn't have more time) online session with A. And then I'll just... survive, though who knows maybe I'll feel fine. And then I go to sleep again. And when I wake up on friday I will no longer have to be tense about whether or not my mother is going to send a Difficult Difficult Text. Or she'll have already sent it and I'll be dealing with that.

Either way, 30-ish more hours. I hate this. I don't want to be messed up because of a date. I've realised I'm more messed up because of what my mother may/may not do (text) than because of my own emotions though, so that's... improvement?

Ah no, I just want it to be over. Doesn't matter whose emotions I'm scared of and why, bottom line is that tomorrow is giving me way too much chaos and I just want it over and done with.

[sae-something]

I don't really feel like writing about the session but I do want to yell into the world how happy I am with haptotherapy and how amazing HT is (or, as some younger parts would like to say but what I think is way too dependent and disgusting: how much I love HT).

we really laughed a bunch today, we were sitting on the table thing and HT was trying to get me to connect to my feet but I was wearing my funny head so when she put her hand on my foot and said something like "let's see if we can find a connection" my funny head said "beep beep, this is the voicemail of Foot"

woo. I'm gonna eat pizza.

[sae-something]

HT and I were sitting on the table, across from each other - her right hand was holding my left and vice versa. Our legs stretched out next to each other and our hands were laying on a pillow I had laying on my knees.

The last weeks, HT has been bringing up 'basic movements' that infants learn - grab, pull, push, let go, stuff like that. Last week we practiced pull - HT would lean back and I would 'hold her weight' basically (which already was very scary).

This week she asked me if I could let go.

I immediately grasped her hands more firmly and felt the fear. I asked her a couple times - but you won't move your hands right? You won't go away? And eventually I let go of her hands, only to immediately grab them again. It was wild how much fear my body felt as soon as I let go.

Eventually I told her, "it just feels like I float away as soon as I let go, and then it's hard to find my way back to you". "You know a balloon with helium in it and you hold it on a string? If you let it go, you have to be really quick to grab it again, or it's gone. That's what it feels like - except I'm both the balloon floating away, and the hands desperately grasping for something to hold onto before it's gone."

I think HT was impressed with how I managed to explain that, and she told me that she notices it in all my body as well, she said "you're not making up any of those feelings because in the two seconds that you let go of my hands, your hands became sweaty with fear, and I see in your body, posture, face - I see how scary it is. Your body holds so much of the very early stuff, somehow there's an imprint of having something and losing it, struggling to find it back, and feeling like losing yourself in the process. To me, that sounds like very early baby stuff."

At that point I think I just stared and mumbled "uh huh". I kept moving between feeling different kinds of young, and then suddenly a harsh rational "but of COURSE I know your hands are still there, fuck sake", and back to young.

Now I'm just tired. At the end I got to lay down with HT holding my head and I told her, "maybe I'm secretly a robot and my charging point is in my forehead, and you're also secretly a robot and when you hold my head you're charging my battery!"

We've also slowly been touching upon some of the intense disgust I feel as soon as I focus on too much of my body - and by slowly I mean so slowly we don't even talk about it yet. But today for the first time I managed to tell her about the disgust from my adult self, rather than a young part just repeatedly asking her "do you think I'm filthy?".

The periphery of my body is doable - hands, feet, head. Sometimes forearms are okay, or the bottom half of my legs (under legs? why is there no word for this in English), but never more than that. And I told HT, "I can be two feet at once, or an arm, or two hands - but not more! If I have to be more of a body at once, it becomes too much, too overwhelming, too shameful, too disgusting. I can be a head and a hand, or one hand and one foot, but when you wiggle my arm it resonates and I feel too much at once, that's why it's scary".

I actually managed to explain a lot to HT today, I think. Maybe that was possible because it was like a floating situation between feeling different kinds of young (pip, little sae, ...), while also feeling my adult self, and sometimes even a little bit of britney peeped through. It was very weird.

[sae-something]

I saw HT this afternoon and it was a roller coaster so I’m gonna write about it. Under a read more because long and vulnerable. Also I think I wrote all of this down quite dramatically, sorry about that.

So, I was grumpy. Because yesterday I felt so excited about seeing HT again, but now I felt grumpy, and I was anxious that I was going to ruin the session by being grumpy and stubborn.

Because of that, I was trying really hard to not sit there in grumpy silence, but instead talk to HT. First we caught up a bit because so much happened since I last saw her (roommate stuff, handing in 1st version of my thesis), but after 25 minutes or so we moved to the table.

And still I was constantly fighting the grumpiness. I was trying so hard and it was a struggle, but I managed (somewhat). But then a baby next door started crying. And not the “I fell” or “I’m hungry” crying, but the heart breaking endless kind of crying. It was so distracting and it just made me SO upset because... here I was, trying so hard to make something out of my session, and now this stupid baby was ruining it for me?! I couldn’t focus anymore. Eventually I snapped and exclaimed something like “That SHIT baby!! I can’t do this!!” and then it turned out that HT hadn’t even heard it yet (it wasn’t that loud, it just... hits me in a very vulnerable place, apparently). HT explained that it’s the neighbour boy and that he’s getting teeth. I was like: sure, fine, I don’t care, I want my therapy and he’s ruining it.

(I just want to clarify that the anger/hate towards the baby was obviously a defense mechanism from my side because crying babies are such a trigger - I would never directly act angry towards a crying baby)

ANYWAY. Me somewhat raising my voice scared me, or made place for the more triggered feelings maybe? Either way I ended up with my fingers in my ears, crying, and rocking back and forth a bit. At some point HT carefully touched my foot (idk if she tried talking to me because that’s how much I was closing off my ears) and she said in the most empathetic voice ever “Sae... this is not doable, you can’t deal with this, come on, we’re gonna go for a walk outside”. Which just made me MORE angry because I Wanted My Fucking Haptotherapy Not A Dumb Stupid Walk. But I mumbled something like “fine I’ll just go home” and moved to the chair to put on my shoes.

HT walked to the back to grab her shoes and keys I think, but then I just started sobbing because it felt like that baby (who was still crying on and off) stole my session and I was so upset. I don’t know exactly how, but we somehow ended up in the room of HT’s colleague (who wasn’t there) and HT put a boxing glove in my hands. It was very weird because I was still crying, and curious at what she was doing, and angry, and scared of what she wanted me to do, but also excited? Just many things like a flipping rotating door all at once.

And then HT was holding one of the foam square things and encouraging me to hit it. Which obviously I was too scared to do. But she kept encouraging me and reassuring me that it was okay. At some point she said “OK, you get three hits!” and then something just came over me. It was like “if she says it’s okay, I’m gonna fucking HIT IT SO HARD”.

So I gave one hit. HT exclaimed “Wow!! That was SO good, you’re so strong! Respect!”

And then I was standing to the side, panicking and trying to get that stupid glove off, and sobbing, and hiding behind my hands, and trying to breathe. And HT kept saying “look at me sae, come on, don’t go away now, look at me, look at my face”.

I let myself fall to the floor and just sat there, sobbing. I was SO scared of what had just happened. Had I really hit her? (Well, not HT obviously, but the foam thing.) I knew it happened, but it felt like the couple seconds around the hit I couldn’t remember. I could never do that. I could never actually put my power into that. I was SO scared. I was half hyperventilating and half sobbing. HT came to sit on the floor with me and eventually I got a little calmer again. Which was good, because it was maybe 5 minutes until our time was up.

But then the stupid baby started crying again. OH MY GOD!!! HT said: “Nope, we’re not doing this again, come, we’re going outside”. So I grabbed my back and just followed HT outside, and then we just slowly walked to my bike and chatted a bit. She urged me to write to her if I want to. She kept repeating things like “see! I’m still walking! you didn’t hurt me!” and she also kept saying how much respect she had, how beautiful my power was, and how strong I will be when I can access that power whenever I want or need to rather than being so scared of and overwhelmed by it.

So that was that. I’m exhausted and I have a headache. I don’t know what to think. It feels strange, I wrote all this and I know all this happened but I can’t for the life of me imagine that I actually put my whole body into that one hit, holy fuck. HT also said that sometimes people need sessions and sessions to get to this point, which I completely understand... I never would’ve guessed I’d be able to do this. I do often have ‘hitting fantasies’ when something inside is very angry (not hitting people, just... the feeling in my arms, the urge to hit walls etc. - but I never act on it).

It was wild. This may need some time to sing in.