Today’s session encompassed a variety of topics. I had intended on talking about my understanding of ‘breaking point’ and safety, but veered off after talking about The Cherry Orchard.

About to say ‘I demand honesty from other people’, I caught myself and said ‘I encourage honesty with friends, but find it hard to be honest myself.’
‘Why do you encourage honesty in others? Because you want to be that person?’
‘Even though we know that my desire to be that person got me into this situation.’ I talked some more about my frustration with the bathroom scene, and how if safety is equated with the ability to feel, it doesn’t feel very safe. R wondered whether that is because I am alone with it.

I agree, and added that once I have examined the bathroom scene from every angle, it wears me out.

‘The one thing I want to do at the end of the day, like most people, is sleep.’
‘It sounds exhausting. I am getting a sense of how consuming it is for you, which I haven’t had for a while.’
‘Yes. It’s like there’s a wall between me and everything…’ I paused, because I couldn’t speak.

‘Can you explain to me what’s going on? I feel a bit out on a limb here.’

‘The inner critic is disputing the existence of the wall.’

‘I think grief is too small a word for this. What differentiates my experience of grief is that there was movement.’

‘When you talk about Chris, although there is obvious pain and sadness, I have a sense that it is complete. It comes up again around Easter, but that is over there, and this is here. When you talk about Chris, you can say the words [died, the C word, etc.]’

‘I hate making comparisons…I hate making comparisons between Chris’ life, illness and death, but throughout that I felt respected.’

‘That jumped out at me then. Do you think that is part of the issue?’

‘Yes. From ‘Because of all you’ve been through, I didn’t want to tell you this, but…’ to ‘She knows you worry’ with no trace of empathy, to that hideous email…’
‘Most people wouldn’t be as affected by it as I am.’
‘Is that the inner critic?’
R and I had a conversation about how I may never feel fully safe enough to express my emotions, but we can work towards that. She offered that I might spend some time between now and next session trying to name emotions as they arise, after I mentioned my physical resistance to them when I am in that night-time space.