Please don’t leave me

K and I are okay. We found each other again. We set what happened three weeks ago in the context of 3 years of work and explored why we were both triggered and hurt. We both apologised. We are connected and she is safe. We were us again. And us is perfectly imperfect. Our therapeutic alliance is so strong and so precious. We have been through so much together, done so much work. She has given me so much of herself. She has held hope for me for 3 years, she has been my light when all around has been dark and decaying.

And she is going away.

I cannot do anything to stop her leaving us. We spoke about our remaining time, my transition to a new therapist, how we will spend the next two double sessions just being together, slowly working out what to do in the time we have left and how we will end. She told me she would understand if I wanted to move sooner, but that she is postponing her surgery until the new year (if she can, of course – her health is not good) so she can do this work with me until December, if that is what I want to do. She cares for me that much and yet it is not enough to make her stay. She cannot stay.

I want to soak her in until there is enough of her in me to sustain me for the rest of my life.

I cannot do this. This pain is genuinely bigger and more all-consuming than anything I have ever consciously known. All I can hear is a part inside my head screaming ‘help me!’ but there is no one to help and nothing to do to end this.

I don’t want to have to survive this. I don’t want to live a life without her in it. I still can’t believe we were sitting today talking about the end, about me without her, about our remaining sessions, about what we had left to do. How can we have been having that conversation? How is this happening? How can I be losing someone so important and be expected to survive? How can I replace her? How can I be expected to deal with this? It is not fair. I am tired of living with loss.

There are no more words. I’ve said it all before. The pain just keeps coming in these huge waves and I cannot find anything to steady myself. I hurt everywhere. My legs ache. I want her to stay and she can’t. Even if she wanted to she cannot stay. So many times she has said ‘I’m not going away’ when we have said ‘we don’t want you to go away’ and now she will never say those words again. She is leaving us and there is nothing I can do except watch her go.