The last time

K and I agreed during our phone call that we will work via Skype, email and text from Monday. We are meeting for a final face-to-face session (for now I hope!) on Thursday or Monday, depending on when her car is fixed. So unless one of us gets sick before then we have two more hours with her and she is going to lend us lots of books and it is a relief to be going there with the knowledge it is the last time for a while, rather than being cut off suddenly. This feels utterly horrendous but the right thing for both of us. It feels too risky to keep meeting when her and Nina have asthma and K has the thyroid disorder – imagine if she got hit badly by the virus and had a massive health flare. And it means we won’t be on edge every single week wondering if the next session will go ahead. It will be hugely challenging and I have wailed and sobbed a lot this afternoon and felt so unsafe I’ve called my GP to ask about crisis support, but nothing about this current situation is not challenging, for anyone.

We are going to split the double session to do hour long phone sessions on Mondays and Fridays,  with our usual quick email check-in on Wednesdays (we’d both individually thought this would work best) and I’ve asked if at the start I can pay a bit for text check-ins on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I’d rather know that is there then need to be in absolute crisis to get contact on those days. It will be good to know it is there however I am doing. My biggest fear is totally cutting off from her and becoming incredibly dissociated and forgetting who she is. I hope the level of contact will stop this. She also said she would let me know how she is if she got sick, because that would be awful to know she’d caught it and not know how she was with it. I really hope I can start to stabilise, not least because I need to build my immune system up and I’m still not eating. Today I had 3 chick pea rissoles at 6.30 plus a Vitamin C and Zinc drink. This is not enough and is more than I’ve had some days. I am going to try and sort this out tomorrow.

The call was helpful but left me feeling utterly bereft and I’ve struggled a lot this afternoon. It is just too much to think that I won’t see K every week or be in my safe space and there is so much fear from young parts that we won’t be as close, won’t be special, won’t be real anymore, that she won’t see and hear them and hold them. It is really so much to cope with, for all those whose therapy is disrupted – K said it is just so difficult as my work with her has been such a consistent source of support, but she is heavily invested in our work continuing. After we spoke I felt really desperate and rang a friend in floods of tears which I rarely do. She really calmed and soothed me and says she’s really here to help me through this. She really understands my attachment to K and doesn’t judge me for it. It settled me for a while but then I got overwhelmed again and sobbed and wailed and wanted to die. I thought about going to hospital because I felt so unsafe, but obviously that is not ideal at the moment. K has said she thinks I need 24/7 support really and she is very worried about me.I don’t want that on top of everything else she has to deal with. I’ve rang my GP surgery and hopefully my GP will call tomorrow (again! She only rang this morning!) and let me know what crisis support is available. I said to the secretary that I was aware that it is the wrong time to have a crisis but that this is probably the worst my mental health has ever been (I don’t necessarily feel worse than I ever have, but it all feels utterly hopeless) and I need some help. My sister is a counselling psychologist with the NHS and she says there will still be crisis support. I hope so as I genuinely am having a lot of suicidal thoughts and feelings and am scared I’ll get the virus really badly due to all this emotional stress and lack of food.

I am going to take sleeping tablets now and hope I actually sleep tonight because that would definitely help. Nina just said that “day 1” wasn’t too bad and I told her I was struggling because I wouldn’t see K for such a long time – I said it was like if she was told she could only talk to me on the phone for months and perhaps longer (we are 12-18 months from a vaccine) because K is the most important person in my life apart from her and she did understand that. Tough times ahead but I do feel K and I have a good plan in place at least. Love to all who those who are also struggling with these types of issues and thanks for the comments on my last post – too tired to respond now but I will.