Session ended up being less intense than I expected, because I attempted to say the first thing that came into my head rather than censoring. R pointed out that I smiled and laughed when she asked how my week had been, but she sensed that it hadn’t been good.

I told her that the nights are still hard: ‘I could be a better human if I could only sleep through the night.’ Then we talked more about how I am handling conversations with other people and R suggested that I try to take the lead by saying something like ‘I’m not doing great at the moment, but I don’t really want to talk about it now.’
Then I tried to go into the January 2011 space and ended up retreating, in spite of R saying ‘It’s OK, Lost.’
‘I don’t want to give this to anyone else.’
‘Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by that?’
‘As difficult as it is to live, it must be more difficult to watch.’
‘More difficult to watch you go through it?’
I nodded vigorously. ‘Many times, I all but...many times I watched her die. And I don’t know what the **** to do with that. When I received that first message, after weeks of knowing, but not knowing for sure, it was an internal experience, because I just didn’t know what to do with it.’
I made a comparison between the email of January 2011, and when I found out that Chris was coming to the end of her life. ‘My abiding memory of that time is having a cup of tea, and my hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the mug.’
R and I talked some more, and she commented that I seemed tired today. ‘Almost like you can’t carry on doing it the way you have been for much longer.’
I commented again on how I can’t see another way of doing this. I need to speak it to be free. R thinks that the space I was in during January 2011 where I knew that something must have been happening, but not knowing what, was a very scary space to be in. I can’t help but agree.
The last thing R said before she left today was quite profound. She told me again that she wants me to know that she can take it. That doesn’t mean she won’t be affected by what she hears, but she won’t be affected by it in the same way that I am, even though she can be with me and try to experience things as they were for me then. I gathered my thoughts for a moment...
‘I didn’t realise how much I needed to hear that. I’ve reached this point of needing to share it before, and the person who was supposedly facilitating that work didn’t feel comfortable doing it, but also didn’t feel comfortable telling me that.’ Next session is Tuesday, and we will be committing to the deep dive into January 2011.

We talked quite a bit about the language used, and that being a possible explanation for why I am having a hard time letting this go. I don't read horror, I don't watch horror movies, and yet this situation was something like a personal horror movie. Part of me is evidently still in shock.