Someone Else's Creation: George Sand

La Petite Fadette

Books got me into trouble from a very early age: my stubborn need to read turned me from a docile and obedient child into a secretive and rebellious reader. I read instead of adhering to the tedious rules of a daily siesta (oh how things changed, I now wish sleep pods and power naps were compulsory…) I would forgo the sun and fresh air, and would instead stay indoors to read and reread books I knew by heart once I ran out of fresh material. I gave myself several headaches from my reading marathons, such was my need to escape into another world curated by a magician who opened up a universe I could lose myself into.

Aged 7, I also loved this gigantic teddy!

One such magician was George Sand. I liked that she adjusted to the constraints of her time by using a male pen name, her scandalous choice of male clothing and public cigar smoking. Only much later did I learn that she was an immensely popular writer during her lifetime, an advocate of the poor and an unapologetic romantic.

I read several of her books; our tiny school library afforded me little choice and I got into the habit of reading alphabetically every single book by the same author, until each offering was exhausted. Just one of her novels seeped under my skin, when all the others I devoured far too quickly disappeared into a mosaic of impressions.

I read La Petite Fadette several times over, between the ages of 7 and 10. The pastoral novel left an indelible mark upon my little soul, and all I remembered was a rather slimmed down version of a complicated love story between well-off twin boys and poverty-stricken La petite Fadette. Orphaned, unloved, exploited by her grandmother she is marginalised and thought of as a witch within the landscape of the French Berry¹. La Petite Fadette heals one of the twins by touching his forehead and praying to absorb his ailment so she suffers instead of him. I remember thinking that I wanted to be able to do the same; other people’s suffering seem to hurt much more than my own, and to be able to reduce theirs would be such a worthy achievement.

Some element of magical thinking and childlike hopes which I can see fitting well in my early world; my parents joined a Christian charismatic community when I was just a toddler, and so I was surrounded by marginal beliefs and beings. This was only exacerbated when we moved to Jerusalem to pioneer a commune which my parents eventually left, separately, splitting my brother and I for 2 long years. In fact, my mum withheld any communication from my dad and my brother. When we finally reunited, I had forgotten how they looked, the sound of their voices. My father brought me the giant teddy and that picture above was taken by him on the day we finally reunited, him, my brother and I.

Perhaps that’s why I became a therapist years later, hoping I could assuage other people’s pain, give them the space they needed and deserved. For 13 years, I worked relentlessly, hoping to foster respect, trust and the unique change that each client wanted to achieve. This was what I had wanted to do for so long, and to feel it being such a prefect fit for me was quite amazing. I felt privileged to be trusted, each session stretched me into adjusting to the flows of life and to be partaking in something so meaningful was the success I had dreamt of. It was also tough, battling with multi agencies and struggling with a terrible lack of facilities, often left to try and manage disappointment and frustration. I also often felt like a sponge, absorbing my clients’ distress and trying to help them hold on to (or discover ) their strengths.

Perhaps this was my version of La Petite Fadette. I had initially wanted to become a writer when I was 8. A year later, and perhaps inspired by the familiar refrain that writers starve, I decided I would also very much like to become a therapist. I cannot remember what inspired me, one of the many books or films I devoured? The reactions were even worse than those I got for wanting to be a writer, so in the end I stopped sharing but not dreaming. I had a few false starts. Until my mid-twenties when I started training as an integrative therapist and volunteered for the local Community Drug Agency. I was thinking of specializing in working with children or mental health, but placements were few and far between. Unexpectedly, I instead considered substance misuse, and after volunteering for 2 years, I graduated and then continued working in the same field for 13 years. It was a happy accident, and being open-minded rewarded me with a setting from which I learnt so much and within which I gave my all.

I eventually realised that I had to make a change as the systemic frustrations were gradually making it harder to do my job ethically and efficiently. I could no longer see clients for more than 8 sessions, hardly enough to establish an ethical and functioning therapeutic process when working with the often most deprived and under-privileged members of our society.

Leaving was so hard; the lack of understanding from my peers was quite puzzling to me. We, who advocate, nurture and facilitate change in others, are resisting change in our own field. I had possibly never fitted in with my peers, as I was younger than most at the time. I have mostly navigated around groups and made connections without ever feeling the pressure to blend in, not as a deliberate behaviour, mostly I think because my points of cultural reference are sometimes tricky to share.

I chose counselling over more rigorous disciplines because (I couldn’t do statistics or experiments on animals, but also)I recognised the philosophical tenets, the Christian influence too, and I enjoyed the person-centered and solution-focused slant as I didn’t look to be an expert but a facilitator. Eventually the lack of evidence-based accountability left me feeling as though I was a priest who had lost their faith. Perhaps I also had to eventually accept that sponging up distress and damage was also draining me and I had to leave before I burnt-out.

Re-visiting this defining book for this post has taken me down a memory lane I didn’t quite expect to visit nor share, but it seems to make sense to me at this point.

I wonder what book, or film, might define part of your life, and when revisiting it, have you grasped something you didn’t expect? If you would like to share, please hit the button below, I look forward to reading your thoughts.

1. Le Berry is located within the Loire Valley in central France.