Today’s session brought me back to a sense of safety, following yesterday’s triggering experience. R seemed to understand the effect it had on me:
‘I sense that the garden centre is significant, you’ve told me a story about the garden centre before.’

‘A week after I heard about the death, I went to the garden centre with Mum and a friend. There was a display of pet memorials. I saw them and felt a sharp pain in my chest, so bad that I stumbled and thought to myself ‘What the **** is going on here?’ I had to pretend I had walked into something, because I made a little noise.’
‘The word ‘pretend’ sticks out to me there, because you were essentially alone with this?’
‘Yes, and yesterday, because I haven’t yet had that conversation with this person, I am still working out whether I can.’

‘I walked into the area yesterday and my stomach dropped. When the person I was with asked if I was OK, I said ‘Yes, this is just a very difficult place for me to be.’ Which is utterly meaningless.’
‘It doesn’t sound meaningless to me. It may have left the other person with some questions, like ‘Why?’’
‘After six years, I should be able to go into the garden centre. It impaired my functioning enough that I couldn’t make a decision. It’s a simple decision too...it’s not life or death.’
‘What I am hearing is that you challenged yourself. You knew it would be difficult, but you knew there is only one place to get a wind chime...I’m guessing you managed to get a wind chime for your nephew?’
‘Not yet, but there is another garden centre I can try. Anyway, January 2011 is the other thing I wanted to talk about. It’s not just ‘She called me into the bathroom, etc.’... ‘She called me into the bathroom to help her with something and then collapsed.’ It’s everything else that went with that.’
‘What you’re saying is it’s becoming more intense?’
‘Yes. ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, but...’
‘Which is contradictory in itself.’
‘She told me that she’d...She told me that she’d died, and that they had already had the service, before telling me about everything that had happened in the lead up to the death, during the two weeks where I had been trying unsuccessfully to contact someone.’
‘That sounds like a really difficult position to be in.’
‘My first words when I showed Mum the email were ‘It’s over.’ She read it, and she cried. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘I sense some...not jealousy there, but you seem incredulous that your mum could read the message, and have that reaction....’Why couldn’t I just read the message, have a cry, and...’
‘I went from not really feeling anything to a very clear sense of ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ That same day I was due to go into the recording studio to record the song I had written in tribute to Chris, which I did, but the sense of ‘I don’t think I can do this’ has become more global. It’s so ****ing hard.’
‘What comes up for me as you say that is because you didn’t know how to deal with it at the time, you haven’t, and now discovering that it may not have happened has added more to it, and you don’t know how to feel.’
‘Exactly. I am having trouble working out how to emote appropriately.’

R then said that although there is a connection between us, she can sense some kind of block. When she said that, I turned to look at her, and she observed how my entire body language changed. I talked about how I find it difficult to be in the between space and look at her, even though I trust her, and that has taken a while due to previous experiences. I feel as though she wants to reach in and help, but I don’t know how to let her. I am deeply grateful for the note we ended on last week, and I told her so.

She asked me how I was feeling towards the end of the session, and I responded that I am feeling safer than I was yesterday. She said that was good, and reminded me that she is working next week, but will be taking the following week off.