Today’s session was less of a monologue than usual. R came in and sat down and asked whether I had seen her response to my e-mail. She said that she had read my message earlier in the week, but hadn’t had a chance to reply any sooner.
I thanked her for her response, and we talked about the similarity between my crying in pottery, and crying in the cinema.
‘Again, I lost all awareness of where I was…’
‘You alluded to that in the e mail.’
I went into some detail about the lengths to which I was going to try and stop myself from crying, and it happened anyway. I explained that there was a pottery demo going on, which I was supposed to be watching.
‘My pottery tutor was unaware of what had happened, until she looked up and I had basically dissolved. Several things happened at once. My mum came in to see whether I would be ready to leave soon, and then realized that I would need to leave immediately.’
‘How did you feel after you had cried?’
‘Embarrassed, ashamed…It is not normal to break down crying in pottery class.’

‘If you were in the class and somebody else was crying, I am wondering how that would be for you. Would you judge them?’

‘No! I would be the person with the tissues…’

‘So you would want to comfort them?’

‘Yes.’
‘If somebody was crying in pottery class and you went home afterwards, would it stay with you?’

‘That would depend on how well I knew the person.’

‘If you were close to them, you might want to check in with them and see if they’re OK…but would it stay with you?’

‘The inability to know what is mine has left me in a bit of a spot.’

We both laughed at that. R commented on my ability to immediately make connections to the bigger picture.

‘But when it comes to yourself…A word we haven’t used before is coming up for me.’

‘Oh?’
‘Vulnerability.’

I was surprised that we haven’t used that word before. R went on to confirm that I am uncomfortable with being vulnerable, and asked whether this was to do with how I am feeling internally, or if it is a fear of being judged.

‘All of the above.’

She asked me again how I felt after I cried.

‘For the first couple of days, I didn’t feel anything, and then I was fearful, because it could happen again at any time.’
‘I am picturing you putting a lid on it. “Can’t let that happen again!”’

I laughed, but it was uncomfortably close to the truth.

‘There was a lot of emphasis on the song, and although the song provoked it, it wasn’t the sole reason. I managed to half burble “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what happened” and couldn’t speak for about twenty minutes afterwards. I wanted to, but there was no way I was getting the words out.’
R asked what it is about crying that scares me. ‘Is it the physical act of crying, or is it the emotional aspect?’

‘All of the above.’

‘Have you ever cried on your own?’

I initially said no, then changed tack. ‘November 2017, during a difficult night; the night is difficult. Crying is loss of control, crying is ultimate vulnerability.’

‘For me, unless you have hay fever like I do… crying is an expression of emotion. Interesting that you used the phrase…’ultimate vulnerability.’ I don’t want to overstep the mark, but I’ve been holding back…and I do want to say this: it’s OK that you cried at pottery.’

R continued by telling me about a lecture she had been to where there were fifty or so words on the board to describe emotions. She said that she realised she only uses four or five, and explained that she brought this up as a way of saying that no emotion is wrong. She senses that my emotions are quite jumbled, and indistinct. The notebook I had brought to session fell off my folder at that point.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake…’
‘Annoyed that your book fell off…that’s one.’
‘I think it is the violence of this that scares me. But if I keep holding it together, it will find a way out.’

‘I hear an acceptance there. It will find a way out.’

‘I think it is to do with facing the reality of the ****** situation [the inner critic was making comments about ‘self-inflicted’, so I leaned over to my right side and flicked it away.] The fear, the anger, the sadness, and that terrifies me.’

‘That terrifies you?’

‘I need to know that you are with me.’

‘I am with you.’

‘And…’ I found it increasingly difficult to speak from this point on. ‘I need to know that you are OK with it.’

‘With what?’

‘If I were to cry in this space.’



‘Thank you.’

‘Well done. I could feel how hard it was for you to ask me for permission there, which was basically what you just did.’

We talked some more about the possibility that she may have a sympathetic tear in her eye, and her desire to be sure that I was OK with that.