For a session that I had pretty much planned, it didn’t happen as I thought. Once I sat down and started talking about the 8th, I hit a wall.
‘We were invited to dinner with some friends, and I was doing pretty well. For me, that is the bare minimum, keeping up with the conversation, participating and enjoying the food.’
‘As you say that I get a sense that there is almost constant monitoring going on: “am I okay, am I doing OK?”
‘Yes, exactly. The conversation was around TV, and what people had been watching. Our friends’ son brought up an episode of Family Guy…’
‘What is happening there? Is it because of the content?’
‘Yes. Our friends’ son brought up an episode of Family Guy where a character was left to die of a heart attack. We both know why that would be a problem for me.’
‘Yes.’
‘The seating arrangement was such that I could not excuse myself quickly, and I don’t think my cool, calm exterior worked. His mother looked at me and said “It’s OK, we’re not talking about real life. This didn’t actually happen.”’
‘How did that make you feel, because you know that Family Guy is not real life?’
‘It didn’t really help. I was still trying to come back. I hadn’t finished eating and up to that point I had been enjoying my food, but after that I lost my sense of taste.’
‘When you talk about that you sound surprised.’
‘It’s the first time I have ever been triggered to that extent, and it took me a while to come back. The ideal is that I don’t get triggered, or if I do that I’m able to bring myself back more quickly, but I can’t do that yet.’
‘Yet. I hear an acceptance there, and it sounds like something that you are working on.’
‘The most difficult thing about this is the cyclical nature of it. Getting through the day only to be in that terrible place again at night.’
‘When you talk about that, it makes me feel stressed. Getting through the day and waiting for horribleness at night.’

‘Exactly, and I think ‘If only I had dealt with it at the time’, but what I am dealing with has changed. It is more intense than it was a year ago, even.’

‘This is a bit directive, but do you feel as though you have changed?’

I paused to consider my answer and replied. ‘I feel markedly less resilient. I couldn’t deal with it at the time, because my attention was on the song I wrote for Chris and making that the best it could be. When you have worked an entire day in a recording studio and just got a guitar track…You have one day to do this project and the engineer says ‘Do you want to come back tomorrow and do the vocal?’ I wanted it to be something I could be proud of, and I am, but it could have been better. I used to think that it was just **** timing, but ‘She knows you worry’, and ‘Because of all you’ve been through I didn’t want to tell you this, but…’ They ****ing knew what they were doing, and I am supposed to forgive that?’

‘Is that an expectation on your part?’

‘There are outside forces, people keep talking about how I have to feel sorry for them. And that’s the old echo “And you can’t just let this go?” If I could just let it go, I would, but it doesn’t feel safe.’

‘And you believe that forgiveness benefits the other person?’

‘I know that forgiveness sets everybody free. I could sit here and quote six different passages from Buddhism to modern American fiction, but I believe forgiveness means it doesn’t matter.’

‘And the flipside of that is right now it matters very much.’
‘For now, forgiveness lies beyond. A place I am not yet fit to visit.’

R asked me how it felt that I was not yet ready to forgive. I said I was OK with it.

‘The meeting at the college went well. They put me in the path of a couple of other opportunities, and then she asked to see some recent work. There is no recent work without the pieces I have written living through this, so I looked through my document of about 30 new poems since 2016 and selected two long poems and four haiku. I don’t know why I did this, but I also attached a 500 word piece on how they came to be.’

R wondered whether this was different than the way I would usually submit work. I explained that it is usually 3-5 pieces and a 1-3 sentence bio.

‘So you have been a bit of a writing rebel, then!’

I explained that I felt as though I was preparing a defence. ‘Throughout my time at university and in developing my own practice, I have always felt that poetry ought to be able to stand on its own, but I was concerned that the pieces might give an impression of me being in a darker place than I am.’
‘You’ve shared some of your pieces, and I wouldn’t say they’re dark. I would use the word ‘powerful’…yes, there’s darkness, but it’s not a negative. So it was less ‘This is where they came from’ than ‘Please don’t use this as a judge for any opportunities you might want to give me, I am OK.’

‘Yes.’

‘In doing that I get the sense that you want to be understood.’
‘Yes. When I am sharing my skills and doing what I love, I feel like a more worthwhile person.’

‘That’s almost a reminder there.’

‘When I write therapeutically, it takes the creativity out of it.’
‘And that is a coping mechanism for you.’
‘Yes. I only write fiction when things are going well, and I haven’t written fiction since 2015.’
‘That’s a sort of measure for you then.’
R and I had a chat about my expectations and she has asked me to come up with a list of what I want and don’t want from therapy.

‘I want to feel. I was talking to a friend the other day, telling them that ‘It’s over, but my shoulders don’t know that yet.’

‘You feel tense in your body? As you said that, I became aware of mine…’Drop your shoulders…’’
‘Yes.’

‘You talk about safety, but what I’ve heard you say in session about feeling scared, overwhelmed, terrified…that doesn’t sound very safe to me.’

Throughout the session I was aware of the letter by my arm, but didn’t bring it up. Makes sense to start there next time.