So yesterday I had my 2nd session.
It was hard, as the therapist had warned me.
Made extra hard by this Friday, the 26th being 1 year on from my devastation.
I wanted to share a few of his observations / ideas / ways of looking at things if that would be ok with you all.
The aim is to train my self awareness and become my own long-term therapist.
To be in control of my mind. Not my mind in control of me.
I have extracted all the possible information I can with the “what ifs”, “if only we had”, “why didn’t”. Now I am just tormenting myself with these questions.
These questions no longer hold any value or benefit as the outcome is the same. It is a no win situation as the outcome is the same.
Like playing a movie over and over again to see if there is something I missed, or different with each viewing - but the story ends the same. So eject the movie.
I have to accept what is not what could be.
Settle into the reality of now.
The mind is like a hive committee with a few vociferous agitators.
If a friend kept asking you “what if you had done”, “why didn’t you”, “wouldn’t it have been better to” you would soon avoid them, cut them off. So why do it yourself.
We are going to get to the point where I remember the life that was lived, not the death.
Valen’s life is not defined by his death and my life is not defined by his death.
Appreciating what we did do, did have and not dwell on what we won’t have, won’t do as what we did have and what we did do will never change or go away.
The therapist has given me an exercise where I write down some of the traumatic aspects of the lead up to, and eventually Valen’s actual passing.
I must write in the present tense but it must be observational, clinical, factual, dispassionate. Using all the 5 senses. If I bring emotion into it (other then describing one of the senses) or go off on a tangent or blame, or move away from the “scene” or try and be interpretive then I start again. And again.
And read it again and again and again. To start to lessen the anxiety over the event.
But I won’t try this till I get home from my brothers in Wales next week.
Let’s survive this week first.
