The two women sat opposite each other. Melissa met Carol’s gaze unwaveringly. ‘Can I ask how you found out about us?’
Carol rummaged in her canvas satchel and produced a dog-eared flyer. ‘I picked this up in my osteopath’s waiting room. I thought it was worth a try.’
‘Can I ask what you’re hoping for here?’
Carol breathed heavily through her nose. ‘Recovery,’ she said. A long pause, which Melissa showed no signs of breaching. ‘I believe I’m suffering from PTSD.’
‘I see. Have you had a formal diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder?’
‘It’s complicated.’ Another pause. Carol knew there was nothing for it but to explain herself but that inevitability didn’t make it any easier. ‘I’m a former police officer. I led a major incident team. My closest colleague from those days is a clinical psychologist. He was also probably my closest friend. He worked with us for years as an offender profiler. We dealt with the most serious offences you can imagine.’ She sighed and stopped.
‘You’re doing well,’ Melissa said. ‘I’m not seeking the details of what your work was like. All I’d like to know is what led you here.’
Carol knew she should tell Melissa more about the catastrophic day that had ended with Tony in jail and her in disgrace. But her shame silenced her. She wasn’t ready to expose herself so completely. Instead, she said, ‘He said he thought I had PTSD. I didn’t want to acknowledge it at the time, but I’ve come to accept it. I had a problem with alcohol. An addiction. He helped me get clear of it. I’m not drinking any more.’ Every sentence was like pushing against a closing door.
‘How long have you been clean?’
‘Coming up for sixteen months.’ Carol gave a wry smile. ‘I could tell you exactly to the day and week, but that would sound a bit desperate.’
Melissa smiled. ‘You’re the only one judging you in this room. I’m glad for you that you’re doing so well with something that is always difficult. Apart from the addiction issue, did he give any other reasons for his conclusion?’
Carol looked past Melissa to the window beyond her. A thin blind obscured the details, but she had the impression of a tree, leaves gently trembling in the wind. At least, that’s what she wanted to imagine. She closed her eyes momentarily then said, ‘Risk taking. Recklessness. Aggressiveness. I was putting myself and others in danger.’
‘So what did you do to deal with these behaviours?’
Carol raked her fingers through her thick blonde hair. ‘Nothing. At first, I did nothing. And then everything went to shit. I . . . I did something that had terrible consequences.’ It was as close as she could manage to confession.
‘Is that why you’re no longer a police officer?’
‘I was told to resign before they had to fire me. So I did. And still I did nothing.’ Carol wasn’t quite sure how Melissa did it, but she seemed to radiate a kind of supportive sympathy. Slowly, it was becoming easier to talk. The tightness in her jaw and neck was less noticeable now.
‘But something changed that position?’
Carol felt her throat closing, as if she were about to cry. She felt outraged. She hadn’t been able to cry about Tony’s absence from her life; it had been a constant pain, a physical ache in her chest for months. But five minutes in this stranger’s office and the dam behind her emotions threatened to burst. She cleared her throat noisily and said, ‘He’s refused to see me until I get help. He told me he loved me and then he refused to see me.’ It wasn’t what she’d planned to say. It wasn’t at all what she’d planned to say.
Melissa nodded. ‘I can see how that might provoke you into seeking help. Are we your first port of call? I ask because ours is not the conventional route to recovery, and we generally find people come to us when the more traditional methods haven’t worked for them.’
Carol shook her head, still off balance from her moment of revelation. ‘I did go to see a therapist.’ An image of Jacob Gold sprang into her mind. He’d been the person Tony had turned to over the years when he needed professional support. Jacob had clearly been good at his job but he was entirely wrong for her. She didn’t want him inside her head. ‘More than one, actually. But I’m naturally quite a private person,’ she continued. ‘And I’ve spent years in a job where confidentiality goes with the territory. I’ve never had the habit of getting things off my chest, and I just couldn’t do the talking cure. And besides—’ She checked herself.
‘Besides?’
Carol shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Besides, you were smarter?’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘No. I made an assumption and you confirmed it.’
Carol almost laughed. ‘I used to have a sergeant like you. Best interviewer I ever worked with.’
Melissa nodded. ‘Thank you. Carol, I’m not going to ask you about the particular circumstances that led you to our door. I don’t need to know that. What we do here is not about words. We have a treatment regime that’s about bodywork. Would you like me to explain it to you? And then you can decide whether you think this is for you.’
Carol felt as safe as she had for a very long time. It was a feeling she’d been afraid she’d never know again. ‘Yes. Please.’
‘Do you know what the fascia are?’
Carol shook her head. ‘Apart from the dashboard of a car, I’ve no idea. But I guess that’s not what you’re talking about here.’
‘No. Fascia are the body’s connective tissues. They run in bands and sheaths through the whole body. They link and protect muscle groups and internal organs. It’s like a spider web that keeps everything working together. When you’re stressed or traumatised, when the adrenaline response of fight or flight kicks in, we’re supposed to drop back down to the resting state once the danger or fear is over. Think of it like electricity being grounded so it’s safe. But sometimes we overload on the fight or flight reaction and we shift further up the scale into freezing and dissociation. The reaction is so intense that the electricity doesn’t get grounded and we don’t drop back all the way down to the resting state of relaxed awareness. Are you with me so far?’
‘I understand what you’re saying, yes.’
Melissa smiled. ‘Good. We have, in effect, got two brains. The conscious brain that controls our thoughts and actions. It’s aware of the past and the future, it’s always busy sending neurological messages back and forth that we’re mostly not even aware of. But beneath that is our unconscious brain. It’s the leftover from our reptilian days and it’s all about survival. It’s plugged into the five senses but it only understands the immediate moment. It lives in the present tense. It knows when the adrenaline cycle is complete. But if that doesn’t happen, if we’re holding on to that stress and trauma, then the survival brain thinks it’s continuing. It becomes a loop, constantly re-running. Do you get flashbacks, Carol?’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘Traditional talking therapy can use those flashbacks as access points to the trauma state, and for some people, that helps. But for others, telling the story can leave you in a dysfunctional state at the survival brain level. So what we need to do is to persuade the fascia to release the stress they’re holding on to so the electricity can ground itself.’