Full on session today. R and I began by talking about my visit to the doctor, after she remembered what we discussed. ‘You sort of planned the next session.’ I told her that the medication won’t be a long term thing, and only to help with something that may become a regular part of work.

‘To me, a contract is a contract. I am contracted for nine sessions, and there is no possibility of making one up elsewhere.’



I went on to say that I wasn’t sure whether it would have been better to have it sprung on me…’Probably not’, or to have avoided having four months to worry about it. R said that she had been doing some reading around fear, and there are two questions which can help. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ and ‘Can I survive that?’

R helped me disarm the Critic after I explained that I didn’t feel I could back out, regardless of what anybody else might think ‘because I would have to duke that out with the Critic. It would never let me live that down.’
‘The Critic seems to control a lot of your responses.’
‘The Critic is terrified of me actually feeling things.’ R and I talked some more about what the doctor has given me, and I told her about the meeting I have requested. She said that was a little out of character for me, and suggested that I could reframe it if I was struggling by calling it an opportunity to help them help me, which is more in line with me. She said that she wanted to say: ‘Go on, Lost!’

I showed her the new poem, and she asked me to help her understand it. ‘I get the sense from this that it isn’t just that one thing. You feel this all the time?’ I didn’t know how to respond to that.
‘What you said about liking the person you are at work stayed with me. I would urge you to hang on to that.’
I talked about what isn’t present at work – a smouldering sense of frustration with the situation and what they did. When I am at work, I can keep that in check. ‘It’s the difference between surviving and being.’
I began to speak more loudly and forcefully as I recounted the experience of what they put me through. ‘Most people would feel more comfortable using the words that don’t feel right on my tongue.’
‘Is that something you feel you need?’

I said I needed to release the anger, but didn’t know how. R said that she is absolutely OK with that, and supports me in looking at ways beyond words.
‘It’s strange to me as somebody who’s spent their whole life learning to use words in the best possible way.’
‘You’ve said before that you didn’t want to taint them.’
I thanked R for recalling the garden centre experience, and apologised for offending her. She said that far from being offended she took it as a compliment.
Before she left, she asked me to remember the two questions that she had alluded to in the beginning. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ and ‘Can I survive it?’

I am also to think about ways of expressing anger in the meantime.