Today’s session was good, but intense. R arrived and apologised for last week.
‘How are you doing?’
‘I am…I hate having to say this, but…’
‘You hate having to say this? Is that because you feel as though you would be disappointing me?’
‘Yes…shaking, that is new…and a complete sentence would be nice.’
‘I heard the inner critic there.’
‘Yes, a complete sentence would be nice, but it is OK that I can’t get there yet.’
‘It is.’
‘I am really struggling at the moment, and I think it is to do with the time of year…With where we left it last time, you asked me how long it had been since I last put my head down and went to sleep.’
‘Yes.’
‘I said it had been a couple of years, and that is the case, but I didn’t mention that the last time I was foolish enough to think just putting my head down and going to sleep was an option I cried intermittently for an hour…that was last November.’

‘And my asking you about sleep made you think about that?’

‘Yes, and I didn’t feel it was appropriate to bring it up at the end of the session.’

‘So you held it.’

‘So I held it. I braved the Post Office a couple of times too.’

‘There’s a smirk as you say that. What is that about?’

‘I was talking to myself inwardly as I walked – “You’re just going to breathe and keep moving…” – and after a while it became apparent that neither of those things was happening. I just wanted to get in there, do what I needed to do and get out. I was out of it for the next hour, to the point that I was not really aware of what was going on around me.’

‘I am trying to imagine what that would feel like, and I can’t quite….what does it feel like for you when you are in that space? When you talk about that I imagine it as a bubble…’

‘It feels spectacularly unsafe, as though I am unaware of anything going on around me.’

‘It sounds quite scary to think that if there were an imminent threat you would not be capable of responding appropriately.’
‘After an hour, I realised I would have to reach out, so I asked the support worker I was with at the time for the words ‘You’re safe.’ She said them, but it was like checking something off a list. I then realised how much of that is tone dependent.’

‘How was it afterwards?’

‘That sort of snapped me out of it and I was able to continue doing what I needed to do, but afterwards she asked: ‘Did you think you were going to fall down the stairs?’ I said ‘No, I am just feeling a little anxious at the moment’, which was a lie…and that was the rest of that day, and the next. The feeling of disconnect persists.

‘Is that feeling disconnected, or thinking about how disconnected you were?’

‘Feeling disconnected…I can come back, but it takes me a while. And then I went to pottery on Friday and was honest with her about how this time of year affects me: ‘Your friend would be horrified if she knew that Easter…’

‘I think I know what you are trying to say, but go on.’

‘Your friend would be horrified if she knew that her death made you dislike Easter.’

‘What jumps out at me there is “Your friend would be”….speaking for somebody you don’t know.’

‘Exactly, so that was Friday and Saturday out, and yes…I know that she wouldn’t want this for me, but it is not all the time. That is what makes the other stuff intolerable.’

‘There was a moment of real connection there, with our eyes, that I just want to reflect back to you. When you talk about Chris, although I see pain in your eyes, you look at me, and the minute we talk about the other stuff, your head goes down, your hair covers your face…’

‘In January 2007, when it became apparent that Chris was not going to make it….That is STUPID!’

‘Stupid?’

‘I feel guilty comparing the two experiences.’

R reiterated to me that she understands the separateness.

‘In January 2007, when it became clear that Chris’ time was short…she said something about an operation, and another ‘Maybe next year,’ and to this day I don’t know how I knew, but I knew there wouldn’t be a next year.’
‘It strikes me that when you were given appropriate information, painful though it was, it was not a shock. Whereas with the other stuff it was constant.’

‘And I think it was also to do with the way she conducted herself through life.’

‘You mean her attitude towards her illness?’
‘We talked a lot about George Harrison’s life and music and beliefs…being a practicing Hindu gives you a different outlook on things.’

‘Oh?’

‘Very early in the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita, it says: ‘There never was a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these Kings. Nor shall there be any future where we cease to be.’ When I can bring myself to believe that, it doesn’t make it OK, and yet it is.’

‘When you talk about Chris, I picture a box and it is closed. It opens a little around Easter, but you know that and you are OK with that. With the other stuff, it is as though the box is open all the time, and…What do we do with this?’ The fact that I used ‘we’ there was interesting to me. What do you want to do with it?’

‘I feel that the key is voluntarily going to the place I am most scared of.’

‘Which is?’

‘That ****ing bathroom…and not going into why or the analytical mode. That cannot happen.’

‘I feel like you are telling yourself that, and telling me.’

‘I think the key is in not being alone.’

‘Because you have been alone with it for so long.’
We set up our next meeting for Tuesday, and R gave me a hug and told me to take care of myself over the Easter weekend.