Intense session today. I talked about the anger being like a concrete block.



‘It took me a while to work out what you meant when you said it had to come from me. Then I realised that you meant it had to be authentic. I don’t think it would ever feel authentic for me to express anger…’



‘For you to express anger, or for you to express anger in the way you feel you need to?’



'I can express anger when I find furniture with my toe....' I laughed



'No, that gives me a really good picture. If you stub your toe, you can go 'Oh, ****!''



‘The only way I can think of dealing with a concrete block is by picking up a chisel – I don’t think cranes can deal with concrete blocks…I picked up a chisel on Monday, and I have written something I would like to share. The presentation is important, so I am just going to pass it to you. The world’s smallest collage came first.’

‘What jumps out at me is “I was angry, still am, because I thought I was done with grief.”’



We talked about how I have difficulty calling it grief.



‘You named it grief in here.’

‘Yes. This feels volcanic, unlike any other grief experience I have known.’



‘You make me visual. It’s almost like grief is a base layer, underneath lots of anger.’



‘Yes. There’s another word that comes up for me, but if I have difficulty justifying the word grief, I will have even more difficulty justifiying the word ‘abuse.’’



‘Justifying it to who?’



‘Justifying it to me.’



‘Where has it come from then?’



‘They knew what they were doing.’



‘They knew what they were doing.’



‘And yet they kept doing it.’



‘And yet they kept doing it.’



R said she felt like I wanted her to say that labelling emotions takes me out of the feelings.



‘Being able to label it, to call it something…decomplexitises…I’m making up words today…decomplexitises it?’



We observed that when I intellectualise, I am engaged with her, but when I am talking about feelings, I look elsewhere. I explained that some people would call it ******** and just move on. I noticed that I had cycled back to talking about the anger, but highlighted that I didn’t feel comfortable facing it head on, because I felt the impact it was having on me, and didn’t want it to have an impact on her.



‘Both of you, piss off.’ The Critic and P cut in at that point.



R noticed and urged me to keep going, but I could not remember what I had been saying. She reminded me of where I had begun.



‘It’s as though it is a huge tarpaulin over my entire life.’



‘What about when you are at work?’



‘The tarpaulin isn’t big enough to cover work as well. The way it is set up, all my students can do is write, and all I can do is teach. When I leave work, it all comes back.’



I talked about how I only knew what Chris needed me to know. ‘I don’t know, but I feel as though she wanted to protect me. With the other experience it was ‘Because of all you’ve been through, we didn’t want to tell you this, but…’



‘The ultimate insult.’



I began to talk about how Kim had recovered from each setback. ‘It didn’t actually happen!’



R picked up on that and reminded me that the Critic shows up when I am at my most authentic.



‘The events as you were told may not have happened, but something happened to you.’



‘With Chris’ death, although April 2007 was a hard week…there was a trajectory there.’



‘Sometimes knowing that there is an end in sight can help us to endure past the point we normally would.’



‘Death is an ending, grief is a beginning. It was very hard being in and out of that cycle.’



‘You’ve talked before about wanting there to be an end to it, and yet not wishing it to happen.’

‘Are we not using the word?’



‘I can use the word if you want me to.’

‘When I got the email in January 2011, my first words to my mother were ‘It’s over.’’



‘That was a deep breath there…’



‘Temporally, it is…but I am still stuck in that ****ing bathroom.’



‘If it had all happened the way I was told, it would be the actions of somebody seeking solace, I guess.’



‘And that would make it easier to forgive?’



‘I could have stopped it at any time, but I didn’t.’



R took both of my hands in hers, and I turned to look at her.



‘Whether you had cut it off or not, that doesn’t change the fact that what they did to you was horrendous. You have every ****ing right to be ****ing angry.’



'I don't have to be OK with it?'



'You don't ever have to be OK with the way they treated you, but you do have to be OK with you...and that's the work that you, we are doing.'



I had to sit with that one a while. We scheduled for the two weeks following half term.