AN: I know the chapters are quite short and I could have combined them but I felt it flowed best like this.
Christian
"Good morning." Tamara says coming into my office where John, Jamie, Emily and I have been waiting for her to come back from her session with Ana. Today we're having a bit of a team meeting to decide the way forward.
Ana has come leaps and bounds since Stephen Morton was sentenced and I know today the team is going to be making decisions about how to proceed while backing off and giving Ana the room she needs to grow and find normality.
She's expressed that herself. That all she wants is a bit of normality. Next week the kids go back to school and Ana has already said they will most certainly be going. She has however decided not to send Amaya and Amelia to Pre-K which is interesting. Both Teddy and Phoebe went to Pre-K and the plan had been that Amaya and Amelia would follow suit but Ana obviously isn't quite ready to let her babies go.
"How is she today?" John asks as he has been the least hands-on person in the room he's relied on the reports of others as to Ana's progress.
"I think we can confidently say we're out of that acute stage post-trauma." Tamara says pouring herself a coffee. "She's ready to just get on with things now and I think she gave me a little bit of a talking to that I was hindering that progress." Tamara laughs but I don't see the funny side.
"Isn't it too soon?" I ask nervously.
"Trauma affects us all differently Christian. You can't put a time scale on healing." John tells me gently.
"She's healed then?" I ask already knowing the answer but I like prodding the bees nest sometimes.
"It's not that simple Christian. There are stages of recovering from trauma in the way we have stages of grief." Tamara says coming to sit down in front of me. "Stage one is the acute stage. It's the days and weeks following trauma. Ana's acute stage was self-blame, helplessness, acute anxiety, acute sensitivity to others, disorganised thoughts and the need to be clean."
"So she doesn't feel like that anymore?" I ask awkwardly. I have to trust these people because they know better than me but it's hard. I don't want her to be let down.
"Not to such an extent that it's having a detrimental impact on her everyday life." Tamara explains and I nod so she's not healed then but she's better than she was.
"Christian with trauma as with grief you have to let it play out to a degree. Ana is coming out of the acute stage. The next stage is the adjustment stage. This is where she will want and need to start returning to normal and we will have to let her do that." John explains to me but I just hear words I don't hear a plan of action going forward on supporting my wife.
"She's going to reject therapy and support Christian. She's going to believe that it's all behind her and she can move on and therapy right now would be counterproductive." Tamara continues and I'm baffled as therapy can't make things worse can it?
"How would it be counterproductive?"
"Think of it like this. You've hurt your arm and your doctor thinks it's hurt far worse than you do. He puts it in a cast, restricting your movement and impacting your life. You don't think it's hurt that bad what are you going to do?"
"Saw off the cast." I reply knowing exactly what I'd do if that was me.
"Therapy is the cast in Ana's tale right now." Tamara explains. "We're not done helping Ana. We just need to back off, let her find her feet, and find her normality again. She'll want to take the kids to school, go to work, do the things she's always done, and when she's ready therapy will resume."
"But what I don't understand is if she doesn't need therapy why will it resume?" I ask as this makes no sense to me what so ever.
"The affects of her trauma are going to plague her over the coming days and weeks Christian but until she recognises the symptoms I can't help her deal with them." Tamara explains but I can see she's getting frustrated.
"What kind of symptoms?"
"There is a huge range of ways in which the adjustment stage can manifest from flashbacks to panic attacks to promiscuity to dramatisation. Until it happens we don't know how it will manifest for Ana. Until we know how it manifests and she recognises that manifestation my hands are tied." Tamara explains to the best of her ability. "What you need to be doing is keeping an eye on her. Trying to recognise these symptoms and letting John, Jamie and I know about them."
"Ok and Emily? Dietary wise?"
"My work is done Christian. Ana has healthy eating habits, she no longer needs supplement, her weight is where it should be." She says and I nod. At least that's one thing less to worry about.
John
When Christian leaves us to work out the plan going forward I sigh with relief. I didn't know if he was going to understand how important it is that we back off now.
Yes I get it it looks like we're leaving Ana to muddle through but that's not the case. Ana has to realise now she still needs help. Problem is now Ana won't work with us.
We're all amazed at her progress though and her needing us to back off is not because of a lack of progress. She's moving to the next stage of dealing with trauma.
I mean a couple of weeks ago Ana wouldn't leave the house. Not only has she left the house but she got up in front of a judge and talked about being raped and then when we got outside without any prompting she went to the press, waiving her right to the appearance of anonymity to thank the press and public for their support. Her strength is incomparable.
"How is she this morning? Really?" I ask Tamara as the only person who has spoken to her and someone I know who understands Christian can't know everything as he'd likely never let Ana leave the house again if he understood the truth.
"She's angry today." Tamara replies. "I'm a hindrance." She adds rolling her eyes dramatically.
This is the problem when a person transitions from acute to adjustment. Ana thinks she's healed when she's definitely not. She wants to get back to normal, put the assault behind her. It's just not that simple.
Biggest problem we have at this stage is we don't know how the adjustment stage will manifest itself and until we do we don't know what kind of therapeutic approach would be best. Plus on top of that if Ana doesn't recognise the manifestations well we haven't got a hope. All we can do right now is keep the door open for her and be here for her when she's ready.
"I think Ana is going to go down the minimisation route. You know the 'everything is fine' and 'it could have been worse' and blah blah blah. She's already started that." Tamara explains.
"She's been doing that for a couple of weeks." Jamie says thoughtfully. "Longer actually. She uses it as a way not to talk about the rape."
"That's very true she's not actually talked about the rape itself with me either." Tamara says which I don't sound surprising. Between everything with Jack Hyde and her Mom there have been other focuses.
"Did you talk to Christian about validation with Ana?" Tamara asks me and I nod. It hasn't been easy supporting Christian through this. He's had excessive mood swings and has found that being this out of control extremely hard. Mostly though he's struggled with being angry and that anger has been aimed at everyone including Ana just thankfully not to her face. Overall I'm just glad he let me be here for him and recognised he wasn't alone and didn't have to cope with this alone.
Validation will be important to Ana over the coming weeks. She needs to know it's ok, that it wasn't her fault, that she's not alone and that none of this was her responsibility. I've drummed it into Christian's head that when she has physical manifestations of the trauma they're going to knock her for six and until she recognises she needs more help and support, validation is going to be crucial in stopping her from sinking into a dangerous and dark depression.
He also knows he isn't alone. He has me and his family. We're all here for him and he doesn't have to carry the burden of supporting Ana all by himself. That's important too. He can't allow himself to sink down because he's too busy taking care of Ana. I'm not worried though. He's leaned on me this far.
"Jamie what did Ana say when you talked about what kind of support you would provide from here on in?" Tamara asks knowing Jamie and Ana had a heart to heart yesterday.
"At the moment I think she's done with me. She loves her mood board but any kind of activity I've suggested since has been rejected. I've tried everything. She says she doesn't need me pushing her to focus on the future when that's what she's doing anyway. So I'm backing off and she knows my door is open." Jamie explains sadly. I think like with everyone Ana has stolen a piece of Jamie's heart.
"She may come to you before Tamara." I say thoughtfully. "For further help I mean."
"Why do you say that?" Jamie asks.
"Well, she wants to focus on the future. She may recognise that she has symptoms of trauma but her want to remain focused on her future may mean that she turns to the one therapist who did that rather than focusing on the past." Tamara explains for me. It's crazy how we all can bounce of each other like this. It's years of working in trauma but weeks of being stuck here throwing all we had at looking after Ana.
"So what do you think I should do? I'm used to applying my techniques to people who have been dealing with trauma for a long period of time often wanting to address them years after the fact." Jamie replies and that's the crux of it. If Ana chooses Jamie she's actually still not accepting that she has to address the assault so there's little Jamie can do.
"I think she'd enjoy walking therapy. Maybe take her but push her a little to address the past and maybe you will trigger her to realise she needs to talk about what happened." I say leaning forward in my chair as I think. "It will go one of two ways. She'll realise that she does need to talk about it and open up to you or reject you and then turn to myself or Tamara a few days or weeks later when it finally hits her that she can't do it alone."
"Makes sense." Jamie agrees. "Ok. I'll suggest walking therapy and prompt her to talk about the past."
"Well guys it has been a pleasure but I am looking forward to getting to the nice big apartment the boss is renting for me. Having a nice hot bath and maybe walking around naked simply because I can." Tamara says making Jamie and I laugh, she's sticking around and is considering moving her practise this way. The money Christian has paid her to take care of Ana means she can afford it.