Feeling really stressed after therapy - but don't know why!

[NarcKiddo]

I was feeling quite calm before therapy. In fact, I didn't think there was all that much to discuss and had gone back over some old topics I had kept back to visit on days like these. I've made some really good progress recently and my T agrees. So it should have been a fairly comfortable session.

Wrong.

All started out fine as I reported on the progress, thoughts current issues with health and FOO.

I reported news that a colleague I used to work with has advanced throat cancer. I had not particularly planned to share this news with T. We got onto the subject because of some comments another ex-colleague had made about the ill one, which had some relevance to some fears I had about my recent health diagnosis.

I am not close to the ill colleague. It is 12 years since I last saw her. She blows hot and cold (mostly cold) and is very private and closed. That's fine. I contacted her to ask about her health because I was not sure the news I had received was accurate. She confirmed the bad diagnosis and somewhat to my surprise indicated she might welcome a visit from me. I am happy to do that if she would like.

And then I got really upset. Not about the ill colleague as such. I am sad about that as I would be sad for anyone who is terminally ill and has a teenage child. So sad. So tough for all concerned. But I got to revisiting all sorts of issues surrounding death, people who I have visited before they died, putting my dogs to sleep etc. And it wasn't the fact of the deaths, it was more about my willingness to show up at a death bed (if I am wanted).

T picked up on my distress very fast - sessions are online and I was trying to hide it because it did not make sense and I was feeling uncomfortable. That, too, is unusual as I have not felt this uncomfortable in therapy since the early days when I was getting used to it. It didn't help that we were already into the last 20 minutes.

I clearly have a lot of unresolved issues around death. My upset did not seem related to the deaths as such, but to my mother's attitude towards the sick and dying.

T and I realised this needs a lot more work. Which is a good thing to know and I will think on it more.

But I have been totally out of sorts ever since my session. Really edgy. Getting very, very stressed by the slightest thing going wrong.

It's weird and new to me. When this has happened before it has usually been obvious to me what the cause of upset is and I have been able to settle down quite quickly after the session.

I don't really know what to do with this horrible, uncomfortable feeling. Hence why I am writing it down here.

Wouldn't be so bad except we are going out tonight for a nice dinner at my favourite restaurant and all I really want to do is throw their glasses and crockery all over the stone floor and storm out. And that's before we've even got there! God help anyone who annoys me... 

[Bach]

 

[Blueberry]

 

[Kizzie]

I clearly have a lot of unresolved issues around death. My upset did not seem related to the deaths as such, but to my mother's attitude towards the sick and dying.

I know from things you have said or written about that your mother is an N and like most N's is quite dismissive of the pain and suffering of others.  Perhaps this is what this tapped into and what boiled up to the surface; that banal almost glib attitude towards anyone else's suffering including yours by your own mother.

I know from having an NM just how deep the hurt is and just how wrong their attitudes are, how much we are just an object to them and how little we count. Maybe little NK needs to smash a few plates (maybe not in the restaurant), and let that anger and grief go.

I am sorry regardless of the reason you are very out of sorts NarcKiddo, it seems like we have reached the bottom of the well and whoosh.