R and I discussed the triggering experience in the supermarket, and she picked up on a number of things. I told her that if she had asked me two weeks ago what absolute overwhelm looked like for me, I would not have been able to tell her. 'Now I know.'

'It sounds as though the experience you had has added an urgency to this. You want to be able to talk about it, face it and deal with it now.'

I talked a little about how other people, family and friends have strange ways of telling me that they are uncomfortable. One friend has done me a favour by explaining that they are not comfortable when people cry, so I am as open as I can be with her, without going...there.

R let me know in an email yesterday that 'You are safe, within our sessions, to go as deep and as slowly as is OK with you', so I reiterated that back to myself, and tried to continue. My first words to her after we exchanged pleasantries at the door were 'What a week!'

She acknowledged that it seemed as though the experience had an effect on me, and perhaps set me back a little. I showed her a poem I wrote on Tuesday that she said demonstrated the intensity of the experience for me. It seemed to her that I felt trapped in the conversation, and she identified old patterns of me being given information that I was not comfortable with, and feeling unable to speak up and say something.

'I can't do this every night for over a year...'

R understands that I am tired. She reiterates and reminds me that I am doing the best I can. 'You're making arrangements with me, you're doing other things...you're doing the best you can.'

'I'm doing the best I can.'

There was more conversation, but it's all a bit garbled at this point. Towards the end of the session, R mentioned that she has been doing some reading around art therapy as part of her training, and I immediately came to mind. She wondered whether I might be interested in giving it a go as a way to communicate when I am in that emotional state.

I spoke of my concerns about being in the 'between space', where I am not in the now, but fully there and she said that it is often a fast track to emotions, so that has to be carefully managed, but she would be willing to help me explore. She said she wouldn't mention it again unless I asked her to bring materials.

We have two more sessions before her three week break.