Shattered slippers

-"I think about Cinderella so often." she starts.

- "Cinderella? I ask.

"Yes, that girl with the glass slippers." She fills me in.

"I know that fairy tale," I assure her, and I leave out the fact that I know the original version too.

 - “Cinderella." she muses.

-"That climbs depressingly." I say.

-"It was." she confirms, "but it took me forever to realize that."

-"Do tell." I ask.

-"I always had to tiptoe, taking very careful steps so that my glass slippers wouldn´t break." after a short pause, she adds: "It's so hard to walk on broken slippers."

-"Glass splinters in your feet are indeed very uncomfortable ." I say.

She smiles a little forced.

-"Continue." I encourage her.

-"Sorry." she sighs as if she is lost. "I froze for a moment. I always do that when I feel confronted."

-"Do you feel like I'm confronting you?" I ask.

-"No, not you." she apologizes as if she just insulted me. "But in therapy, I must confront myself, don't I? Otherwise, what is the point?"

"That's one way of looking at it," I answer and she nods with closed eyes.

"But freezing isn't really a great way to handle confrontations," I inform her.

-"Yes, I know." she replies, "And yet it's kind of a reflex with me. It was a strategy that worked in my favor. My marriage was either an armistice or an endless discussion in which I could barely breathe." She plucks at her scarf, then continues in a more cheerful tone: -"But if it's not about me, I manage not to hide and I'm even willing to fight." 

I look at her questioningly.

-"My children, for example. I only want the best for them." she says with a brave undertone.

-"What could be more natural?" I reassure her.

"Yes, I am prepared to fight for my children," she repeats.

-"And for yourself?" I want to know.

She shrugs: "I capitulate. Against my better judgment, I always give in. I freeze." Her eyes glide around my office, then she continues, "I'm in bed way too much." she lets out another deep sigh. "Frozen."

-"Now you remind me of Snow White." I throw in carefully. She smiles shyly:

-"Maybe I am waiting for someone to kiss me awake. Most of the time I'm in my room, in the dark."

- “From glass slippers, you practically moved on to a glass coffin.” I point out to her. "What goes through your mind when you're alone in your room?" I ask her.

-"Stupid things." she shrugs, "Taxes, traffic, a masseur who would help me with my never-ending headache. My children."

-"How do you feel about your children?" I interrupt her briefly.

-"I love those damn kids. Really! But I am not a real mother. I am a joke." she says sadly to herself.

-"How do you mean?" I ask.

-"I do not want to disturb them. I do everything I can to avoid them as much as possible." she answers.

"Don't they wonder what's going on?" I ask in amazement.

"Ah, you know how teenagers are: narcissistic. In their eyes, pain is meaningless when it happens to someone else. My pain floats around them like an abstract mist - irrelevant." She sounds so lonely.

-"I find it difficult to communicate with them." she continues. I take a deep breath and let her continue talking.

"I try to keep as much pain away from them as possible. If they have to suffer pain, it will be their own pain. A pain I can help them with. They should not suffer my burden."

"So, you just keep quiet in your room?" I conclude.

-"I can't think anymore." She sounds desperate, "It makes me dizzy. Getting up and making food is already too much for me." she pulls her hair back and continues: "A few days ago they texted me from the living room saying: Hungry! Food!" She curls her hair and looks at me ashamed.

-"I put twenty € on the table now. So, they can order pizza."

-"Where is their father?" I inquire. But she ignores my question and goes on: "I have no idea where or when this will end."

She hides a smile behind her hands: "Sorry." she apologizes.

-"Why?" I ask.

"I was thinking of what you said about Snow White and that glass box.

-"There was a time when the mysterious nature of glass was a source of fascination for people. It is transparent yet solid." I tell her in between.

-"And it separates us." she cuts in, "And it's so fragile." she moans.

"Sometimes I think I'm made of glass. At least that is how I feel. I am afraid of moving, afraid of shattering." she says in a whisper.

-"People don't see me. I am taken for granted. But I don't want others to see my vulnerability, I'd rather fall apart."

I want to say something to her, but she doesn't give me a chance and continues her story.

-" My husband once asked me why I needed a lawyer to get a divorce. He thought that was something we could figure out together, that a lawyer would only complicate things. He wanted an amicable divorce." I listen carefully to what she says.

-"I need someone to plead for me. I need someone to urge me to fight." she says firmly.

-"And who helps you to thaw?" I stop her.

-"He came home one time, unannounced. Then he just walked into my dark bedroom. He startled me and that made me confused. He had come to ask me what I wanted him to do." Her eyes sparkle as she says this.

-"What I wanted him to do? Parent his kids, feed the cats, and clean the litter box. Cook and clean the house. Take out the trash, and vacuum. It is so humiliating to not be able to do things yourself.

-"What did he have to say to that?" I wanted to know.

-"That we had to arrange the divorce as soon as possible." she replies with a weary sigh.

"You know," I begin, "the way we think about ourselves protects us and it becomes a reality that we protect."

-"Three months after my divorce was final, I started to feel cold. I didn't care anymore. I even wished that I would freeze. It is strange: I feel very dissociated and at the same time completely at the mercy of my body ...a feeling that seems so unreal yet all too real at the same time.”

She wipes her tears with the back of her hand:

"Can you tell me, doctor, if everything isn't real, why does it all feel so terrible?" she asks.

"You freeze," I answer, "and you get the feeling that everything is not real because the alternative is anger. To feel how angry, fearful, and sad you are. You keep yourself trapped in your own imagination to avoid the uncontrollable. It's a way to protect yourself from vulnerability, pain, and sadness." My words make her fall back into the seat.

"Everything is so terrible," she whines, "and I feel so scared all the time."

-"I know. I understand you." I try to comfort her.

-"I'm in pain all the time." she cries.

-"Pain is frightening." I say, "There's a way to get through this. It will be fine." I try to assure her. "I'll show you how to let the light back in."

"You know," she interrupts, "I've been stuck in my marriage for so long. I didn't know what to do anymore. I was afraid that if I left everything would shatter. I was a wall or a dam between my children and my fury over their father's absence: I was always a channel, an antenna so to speak, facilitating information. I always explained what he meant when he spoke or interpreted his tone. I reached out strategies to my kids to understand someone who is incomprehensible. I gave them the wrong idea of ​​a healthy and functioning family. I wanted them to see what I, because thought they should see because I thought that was all I had to do, to keep things from breaking.”

-"Do you believe that they did not realize that everything was already broken? I ask her.

"You know, I feel like I've been sitting on the windowsill for years, waiting to jump. But the fear of falling kept me from it," she says changing the subject.

-"You don't have to jump." I say, "You can also walk to a door, open it and walk down the stairs: step by step until you reach the floor. It is possible to arrive in a healthy place. Even if it hurts."

She lets her tears flow as I speak.

-"Do you think that divorce was the right decision?" she asks.

"For what it's worth, I'm convinced it was the right decision," I answer.

She smiles: "Yet I wish I didn't have to change our family."

-"That everything went on as it was?" I ask.

-"That a rite of passage was necessary." she shakes her head. I feel touched by her heartiness and at the same time, I fear that she mirrors this reflection to reassure me and to mask her fear.

-"It took me so long to understand my own feelings. Grief is so complicated." she sighs.

I get up to get her a glass of water, which she takes eagerly and drinks in one gulp.

-"We must work on a way to get you out of being frozen in place. You are not nearly as frail as you think. You are not made of glass. And from now on you will wear different slippers. Cinderella´s model is out of fashion anyway.”

She looks at me bewildered.

-"You just have to learn some strategies to deal with your stress and anxiety. Create a new space in your life, outside your bed. This part of your life belongs in a memory." I explain to her.

-"How long will take? " She asks.

"I can't give you an honest answer to that." I answer, "Time. Time and luck." but she interrupts me and says:

-"Both are as fragile as glass."

-"The breakdown of your marriage and the legitimization of your emotional pain leave you frozen in place. It traps you in the eternal fear of shattering. Allow yourself to feel, to move. To live!" I say as I grab her hands.

-A new beginning." I assure her.

-"A new beginning!" she agrees with a smile.