Today’s session felt intense, although it wasn’t. R came in and sat down. I immediately said that it felt like a long week. R asked what I meant, and I said that I am still struggling with the implications of what we discussed last week.
R asked whether it was to do with the circumstances in which I ‘found out’. We have talked at length about my experiences, without putting a label of any sort on them that stuck.
‘There’s always been a box,’ I said ‘but now there’s a label, and I’m not sure whether I can put that particular label on that box.’
R recognises that the word is loaded, but does not seem averse to using it. She asked whether I felt like I was back at the beginning, or whether I had simply changed course.
‘It’s not square one, but it’s pretty close.’ I said that I had attempted a collage on Saturday, but it turned into something else.
‘This seems like a safer way for you to engage with your experience than approaching somebody directly and saying ‘Can we talk?’’

‘Yes. When I say to my support workers that I have attended safeguarding training and it was rough, their impression of it being rough is different.’

‘So you can’t really be open with them about your experience?’

‘True. When I try to be open with people about the experience, I often hear ‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’

‘What would you need in that moment, ideally?’

‘I’d rather hear ‘I don’t know what to say, but I can listen,’ but I know that isn’t something you can just offer willy-nilly.’
‘And when you sense that somebody is even slightly uncomfortable with what you are saying, you will retreat back into your shell.’
I described the feeling as like trying to take something out of the oven without oven gloves. R nodded.

‘You thought it was cool enough, but now it’s molten again.’
R reminded me that ‘When things are hot, they cool down eventually. This is hot again right now, but it will cool.’ She asked to look at the collage again, and we talked more about the difficulty of the trigger coming up in a professional context.

‘You’re still in that moment of disbelief.’ I talked about not being able to have a conversation with my support worker ahead of time, because I did not know this would come up.
‘At lunch, my boss asked me how I was finding it. She seemed to know I would struggle with it.’

‘And what was your answer to that?’

‘I said I was OK, which I was at that point.’
I talked about reading the policy again before the training, and considering whether I should say something.

‘There is autonomy there. Do you feel you want to say something?’

‘No!’ I asked R whether she was willing to move, and then, when she sat down, said: ‘I am so tired of being brave and holding it together. I don’t want to appear fragile.’
‘Do you feel fragile?’
‘After the last two weeks, yes.’

‘Before that?’

‘No.’

‘If you were to ask me whether I feel fragile,’ R offered, ‘I would say I feel fragile most of the time. Not to the point that I’m not capable of doing my job, but I have moments of fragility on a daily basis.’

R asked who I was holding it together for. I am still scared of the answer to that question. We talked about fragility, and I said that I put a lot of effort into my work, and like to appear competent.
‘I am glad I wasn’t paid for that training, because I don’t feel like I was operating to the best of my ability.’ I explained that it became difficult to think clearly. ‘Everything seemed to slow down.’

R said she wasn’t surprised, and reminded me of my reaction when a beer bottle exploded in pottery class.

‘You still took something away from the training, you stayed in the room, and you didn’t have a panic attack. If you had been paid, I would have said you deserved a little extra. You seem to need permission to praise yourself.’
‘Yes.’

‘Have you officially celebrated your competition?’

‘..Not yet.’

‘…That was a no…’

‘That’s an accurate translation.

R and I scheduled for next week, and she said she will try not to rearrange.