During lockdown, I was sitting on my balcony in the sunshine one morning when I witnessed a brutal killing. I heard a loud, mechanical-sounding buzz behind me and went to investigate. I found a fly caught in a web, buzzing and shaking, fighting to escape. I watched as a spider darted from one side of its prey to the other and back again, using its legs to wrap its silk round and round the fly. At first, the fly seemed to buzz more and more loudly and shake more and more vigorously. The spider, undeterred, efficiently and precisely tightened its prison. I watched in disturbed fascination as the buzzing grew quieter and the movements weaker, until the fly fell still and silent. The spider’s work was done.
This memory resurfaces more often than I would like it to. I think it has stuck so powerfully because I recognise within myself the prey and its predator: the lively emotions that want to fight and fly; and the part that seeks to extinguish them, instinctively, silently and with no mercy.
But I know it’s not just me – these different parts exist in all of us. It can sound strange, at first, to reflect on ourselves in this way: to acknowledge that there are different parts of our minds that want different things. But I find this way of thinking very useful, especially when it comes to building a better life. Because if we know only about the part of ourselves that wants to fly and we ignore the part of ourselves that is working hard to keep us in prison, we risk getting stuck in a web of our own weaving.
As a patient in psychoanalysis and as a therapist to patients, I have found that it is vital to get to know this spider inside. What is it that drives this destructive part of ourselves, that can seem so terrifying, implacable and powerful, that can weave its silk bonds and so successfully immobilise our aliveness, our capacity for growth and development?
In my experience, it is usually a feeling that sets it off – an unwanted emotion that we do not wish to admit to at any cost. The emotion is lurking in our unconscious, but not truly felt in our conscious mind: without being aware, we sense it is there; we catch its flutter in the corner of our eye or hear its irritating buzz.
You might be trying to comfort your child, but they are crying for their other parent. You suddenly find yourself overwhelmed by a horrible state of mind, like a thick, gunky tar. You don’t know what you feel – something like despair, outrage and anxiety all at the same time. You might take out your phone, or eat some crisps, or turn on Netflix – anything but turning towards it and feeling it.
When an emotion is overwhelming, what often gets lost is that a feeling is just that – a feeling. It is not dangerous; it is an emotional experience that can be attended to, put into words, digested and understood.
The spider inside does not realise that this process is not only possible, but vital – the root of all psychological development. If we are able to feel rejected – and allow that feeling to take up some space in our mind, feel that pain and sadness and make links with our past and understand where it comes from and why it is overwhelming – we might then be able to grow a capacity to think. In turn, we might be able to help our children to digest their emotions, too, to understand that a child will have all sorts of feelings about their parents and needs to be free to do that and know that they are still loved.
When we cannot acknowledge a feeling, it takes over our minds and bodies completely: we cannot think and have an internal understanding. Instead, the spider inside is activated. One part of us is fighting to breathe; the other is tying us down and paralysing us. And so we remain stuck, locked in an unconscious battle of life and death.
It might not look like a battle of life and death on the outside; it might just look as if you are stuck in a rut. Determined to exercise, but never putting on your trainers. Hating your job, but never writing an application for another one. Spending the evening looking at your phone instead of your partner. Lying awake in bed all night long. Never quite starting the task at the top of your to-do list. Bursting into a futile rage with your child and upsetting everyone.
I think one of the ways that therapy has helped me to build a better life is that I now have an understanding of these different parts of me. Now, I can recognise when the spidery part of me has been activated. I am not always able to immediately identify the feeling that has provoked it. I am not always able to resist the allure of Netflix and crisps. But I do know that something is going on, that it will be there for me to try to understand when I regain the capacity to do that. Because I know my spider is hungry. But what is it hungry for?
Moya Sarner is an NHS psychotherapist and the author of When I Grow Up – Conversations With Adults in Search of Adulthood
