Today’s session ended up many miles away from where I expected it would. After we had done the paperwork, R asked how I was doing.
‘If I say there were three points at which you nearly got an email, but the English language failed me…’
‘You couldn’t find the words?’
‘Exactly. Realising what I came to realise last week about the isolation thing, made me wonder if I am perpetuating the pattern.’
‘Can you help me understand that?’

‘When I was in the situation, I didn’t feel as though I could talk to anybody about it. Now, the situation is so complex that I couldn’t talk about it even if I wanted to.’

I said that the one person I wanted to talk to about it is also the one person I can’t talk to about it. ‘When I think of safety…when I think of safety…’
There were a couple of different options for ending that sentence, but neither of them made it out of my mouth.

‘Do you want me to move?’

‘Yes. I hold the way I was treated during Chris’ illness as a gold standard. The only time I really knew anything was when she could no longer update me.’
‘You hold the way you were treated as a gold standard. You felt respected and valued?”

‘Yes…the refrain during the other situation was “There is only so much one human can take.” I forgot about myself. There was information shared with me in the last months of Chris’ life, by Jonathan, that I don’t even know whether it was true. Not that it would change the outcome.’

‘I would invite you to consider what will be most helpful to you. What haven’t you processed?’

‘During the last week of Chris’ life, I remember fragments. I remember being offered a cup of tea, and when I looked down I was shaking so hard I couldn’t drink it. I couldn’t hold the cup, but there were questions over whether I wanted the tea.’

‘You experienced something you had never felt before.’ R noted that I was uncomfortable saying certain words.

‘I am purposely not using the word,’ R said, but there seems to be an uncomfortability around talking about finality.’

‘Yes. If I talk about it, I have to face how I feel about it. During the week leading up to Chris’ death, I don’t remember crying. Jonathan had promised that he would keep the forum thread where she mostly posted up to date, and I participated in that for a year. When Jonathan wrote a message wishing her son a Happy Birthday, five days after his mother’s death, that caused me to weep. I can’t even imagine, not that I want to imagine, but…’

‘You are a real empath.’

‘And whilst I am empathising with somebody else, I do not have to feel my own feelings. I remember snapshots, unlike the bathroom scene. “I have just heard from Chris’ brother that she is at the final step of her illness. We are only waiting for the end and praying that she should stop suffering.” There are elements I remember like scripture.’

‘I have noticed that. You can reel them off.’

We talked about how I am glad that Chris did not live to find out that we had been deceived. ‘It’s devastating.’

‘People tell me that it probably wasn’t just me.’
‘And how does that make you feel?’
‘I know it wasn’t just me. They deceived her too.’

R said that she got the impression mine and Chris’ relationship was ‘very nurturing and protective of one another’
I commented that I felt Chris treated me in the same way as her children.

‘What I feel I need is permission to be absolutely livid, but I can’t be angry at Chris.’
‘You have every right to be angry that Chris died, and angry that you had to deal with all of this additional ****.’
R offered to send me some quotes on anger that a friend had shared with her. She feels that anger gets a bad reputation, but it is a useful emotion.