At my counselling session, Jane gave me a set of Russian Dolls, asked me to take them home and work with them. She wanted me to look at each layer and really feel what each layer represents in Tom. I did this exercise tonight. It was very painful, and I really didn’t want to do it.

There were seven dolls in total.

Doll One – the ‘doll’ that everyone sees, the face he shows to the outside world – Happy, funny, friendly, helpful, generous, caring, intelligent, kind-hearted.
Doll Two – Darker, moody, snappy, very little patience, low tolerance, lazy, judgemental, non-forgiving.
Doll Three – Weak, controlling, spiteful, nasty, abusive, lonely, lost, sad, hurt. (It’s the lost, sad and hurt in him that keeps me there.)
Doll Four – Empty, hard, bitter, angry, in pain, has to have everything his way all of the time.
Doll Five – Pathetic, needy and insignificant.
Doll Six – He’s like my Dad. They are liars, very convincing ones. I have always believed every word they say; it wouldn’t have even entered my mind to doubt them. Such was my trust in them.
Doll Seven – Liar. LIAR. LIAR.

Jane said to me during our session that this was a very important exercise for me to do because she feels that I don’t actually love him anymore. She thinks I am just stuck in the habit of thinking I love him. She said if I can see him for who he actually is, then I will be able to break that habit. I think she might just be right after doing this exercise. How can I possibly love someone I haven’t really said one nice thing about?

This exercise has also made me see that my Dad is exactly like him, and like him, he tricks me into believing he’s nice and kind by switching quickly between modes, so quickly I barely have time to notice. So quickly it serves the purpose of fooling my mind into thinking I am the one with the problem.

Dad is everything I have described him as; they are so, so alike, and when either of them has insulted, belittled, neglected or abused me in some way, they’ve also instantly turned that into smiling or laughing or passing it off as a joke.

My entire life I have had this from one or the other. My entire life has been spent feeling one thing and then being told what I’m feeling is wrong, that they know better than what I feel. They have taught me that I can’t trust my feelings because they’re wrong, and yet all along it was them, and their behaviour, that was wrong, and my feelings were always right.

This is the ultimate in abuse.

It’s not the nasty words, the name-calling, the violence in the voice or anything else you can think of; it’s telling someone that what they feel is wrong.

Not one person in this world can ever do that. I am the only person who feels what I feel, and my feelings are never wrong. They are my intuition, and it has always been denied by me because I’ve been taught to deny it. Well, no more. Not by any of them and not by anyone else.

Isn’t this the whole purpose of me writing – to find and become my truth?