My client was going through a tattered treasure chest that she'd pulled out from the back of her closet. She uncovered an oblong, musty smelling box. She opened it and discovered a porcelain doll.
The dolls legs were decomposed. Part of the dolls face was broken into tiny egg-shell pieces. The dolls dress was stained. My client said the box felt like a coffin, and the doll a corpse. She also didn't want to let the doll go. She was remembering how much fun she used to have playing with the doll when she was a little girl. She called the doll, "A nuclear sentimental clutter bomb." She was stuck.
I said that some of our things make us feel tremendously pleasurable with memories, at the same time they are punching us in the gut with the reality of what they actually are now. I was strong with the second part of the description of our experience because we tend to just focus on the pleasure and ignore the pain. Living that way is hard on us because we have to lie to ourselves.
She said she sensed the tension the presence of this doll was causing her. She said she wanted to honor the doll by giving it a burial in the landfill. She put the doll and its container in the trash bag.