First session back was difficult to put into words. R came to the door and pulled me into a hug as soon as she crossed the threshold.

She confirmed what had happened and then said that she did not want me to feel as though I cannot talk honestly about my experiences.

‘If anything comes up and you feel that you aren’t sure whether to talk about it, please bring it into the room.’

She then asked me how I have been. ‘The word that comes to mind is intense, but that doesn’t really tell you anything.’

‘It says something.’

‘I’ve actually written something I would like to share with you.’

‘Of course.’

‘I would appreciate it if you read it to yourself and then we can talk about it.’

I fiddled with my pebble as she read.

‘Thank you, Lost. This gives me a good idea of how things have been. Firstly, an apology…do you feel that not knowing how long I would be away for had an impact?’

‘Yes, that was hard.’



‘If I could go back, I feel like I would have managed expectations better, but I didn’t know how long I was going to be away for.’

I waffled more about the pottery experience and how I felt as though I ought to have cut her off when the topic of first came up, but I didn’t feel able to.

‘Do you think you would have been able to if you hadn’t experienced the freezer sensation or the panic attack?’

‘I am not sure. It took me a while to come back from it, and when the beer bottle exploded, I didn’t even register the noise.’



‘That is an indication to you of how far you were into that different space?’



‘Yes, I thought to myself later of when you’re at the dentist and they say “If you need me to stop, put your hand up.” Why isn’t there a more universal signal like that?’



‘When you say ‘Come back from it’, what did you do?’



‘Journalling, meditation…anything that brings me back to the present moment. This is now.’



‘Of course, it snowballed from there. I was just coming back to solid ground when I got the news that a longtime supporter of my music had died suddenly.’



‘I’m sorry to hear that, Lost.’



‘So, there was a feeling of ‘If you don’t go back, there may not be a session for you to return to…It is not as if there’s going to be an event which will wipe out the musicians!’

I went on to say that I sometimes feel like a hedgehog. ‘I want to curl up but I am afraid that my spines will hurt people.’



We also talked about the links between my inner critic and filtering system. R gets a very strong sense that I am not able to speak freely.

‘Sometimes there ware pauses when you are thinking, but sometimes I get a strong sense that you are fighting with something. I feel a sadness, because I want to say ‘Just say it!’



R asked whether the filtering happens in all my conversations and then we talked about how I allocate so much energy to the avoidance of triggers that I am not really involved in the conversation.



‘On a good day, I am running at 50% capacity.’

Is there a goal?’



‘I would like to hit 80%.’



‘So you don’t envisage this going away and leaving you with 100% capacity?’



‘Second weird metaphor of the day. If we are talking about cars, then I am running on a quarter of a tank, and as the nights are still hard…’

R felt that we had broken through something, in that we’d spent the session talking about my communication.

‘Even though it began with me handing you a piece of paper?’

‘Don’t knock it. You’ve problem-solved that yourself. If you’d tried to express that verbally, we wouldn’t have got through half of it.’

Next session we are going to pick up and talk about crisis planning, and other people’s responses to my situation.



There was a slight scheduling snafu, but she is willing to shift some things around, and we will hopefully meet next Monday.



The words 'You are a priority' ring in my ears.