by Christi Baker, AMFT

UNFOUND

“It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found.” 

D.W. Winnicott

I felt the end before we began. As I reflect now, I am uncertain if I made any headway in finding her. When we first started working, I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t think. I couldn’t discern which affect belonged to whom. I couldn’t tell what was fact and what was fiction. I was confused about who was a friend (good object) and who was a foe (bad object).

This fog seemed to exist in her world, in the space we shared weekly, and in the positions we shared in relation to each other. I got caught up in content. More so, I got overwhelmed by affect and experienced difficulty in holding onto my emotions. Often, I vacillated between anger and exasperation. After a few months of working together, she indirectly pointed out my impotence in this relationship. I was shocked that my internal reaction was visceral fury. I wondered whether the rage was mine or hers, and was left with the eerie sense that she had no trouble locating hidden parts of me.

Strong impulses accompanied my strong emotions. Sometimes I wanted to rescue her; other times I wanted to lash out at her for being so hidden. I felt a sea of confusion and emotions beyond anger, such as intermittent paranoia. I had a sense I could be fired, maybe even tried (for crimes unknown). I yearned to understand her, with an equal dose of terror about what I would find. Often, I also surfed waves of emotional nausea (shame or existential dread).

Despite my many feelings and urges, I couldn’t feel her. I wondered if how I felt with her was how she experienced her internal world. In one particular maddening moment, I clumsily let her know that I was “having trouble locating her.” My inadvertent poke appeared to get through her fortress as she softened and teared up in that session. After that, I thought we were making progress, and maybe we were. But without any warning, she showed up a few sessions later saying this was her last and that I had been of no help. It stung, of course, and part of me knew that she remained unfound between us. Maybe the small holes I poked through her façade, glimpsing a frightened little girl, were unbearable to her.

With her, my perspective remains myopic. What makes it so hard for me to see her? Her lack of curiosity? Her hiding spots? Her impenetrable walls of avoidance, disavowal, and dissociation? Is my limited sight due to my own blocks around the places I couldn’t or wouldn’t go? Or is our disconnection a result of our co-created whole or hole?

Unfound she remains to me, but I hope for her to be fully found in another space and time.