Today’s session was intense in ways I was not expecting.
‘I got your e-mail. I’m not sure whether you want to start there?’
‘I didn’t have a sense that we went particularly deep in the last session, but two days later it was the day I should have been working. However, they were at the [Famous Local Theatre].’

‘Yes.’

‘So I was brushing my teeth, totally focused on that, not thinking about anything…and I was crying.’

‘That took you by surprise?’

‘Totally.’

R asked whether I was alone in the bathroom, whether that gave me a kind of safety, as compared to being in a public place, thinking ‘I have to get out of here.’

‘It gave me a sense of safety, but it felt like an incomplete experience.’

‘An incomplete experience?’

‘Yes, I cut myself off quite quickly.’

‘It sounds to me as though you spend so much of your time holding it together that when you are off-guard, your emotions make a break for it. “Quick, her guard is down, we need to get out!”’

I laughed, and then shifted position. ‘Seems I am sitting on a hair grip.’

‘You would think that would be painful! There’s been a lot of laughter in our sessions lately, and it’s come from you. It’s been really nice.’

R asked whether I could recall a previous experience of feeling safe to let go – ‘I remember the session where you got quite upset and I sat on the floor by you throughout.’
‘Six years ago, before any of this became what it is now…a minor issue that I’m making into something major, apparently…some friends invited us to an Easter service at a Methodist church. Stop me if I have told this one before. I was performing throughout.’
‘Holding it together.’

‘Church on Easter Sunday, last place I want to be. Unusually for the tone of an Easter service, the vicar was talking about how it is OK to grieve. I made a little noise and managed to regain composure. The terminology is important. He said it is right to grieve. I crumbled completely.’
‘What jumps out at me there is permission. It is OK to do that.’

I talked about my sense of holding something I can’t put down. ‘I am keen that I do not harm anybody else.’

‘That sounds to me like you’re saying you need to do this alone?’

‘I’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work.’

‘That’s part of the reason I am sitting here.’

‘Given time, grief becomes poetry. This situation will become an unnatural disaster that lays waste to my inner world. If we de-personalise it a bit, poor boundaries got me into this situation.’
‘I can only hear a small amount of self-blame, but we can’t remove the responsibility of the other people.’
‘I feel like my boundaries are so far up that nothing is getting in.’

R replied that when you keep out bad emotions, you also keep out the good. We had a brief chat about Brené Brown, which gave me the guts to go ahead and ask for what I needed after a fashion.

‘The Critic has been giving me hell over this, but five minutes ago I was going to ask you something.’
Instead, I had discussed the writing for wellbeing training at work, where a discussion around boundaries had been triggering.

‘It sounds as though that discussion threatened your sense of safety at work?’

I explained that I had already notified my boss that I didn’t want to be involved with the social prescribing aspect. I was surprised that R didn’t seem fazed by the terminology. ‘My boss doesn’t know why.’

‘We’ve talked about escape routes before…I wanted to ask whether you would be comfortable being a bit closer to me when I am in that space. We talked about rearranging the seating before the break, but then other things happened. I feel like I need you closer.’

R reassured me that was OK by her, and we talked about the specifics. She reeled off most of the reasons I had been reluctant to ask.

‘I am going to say now, Lost…that is absolutely OK with me.’

I said that I hadn’t heard from the disability assessment people but would let her know when I did. We scheduled for the next two weeks.