I decided to speak to someone after the death of my mother. I was 72 years old at the time and that was 5 years ago. I realized that underneath the grief I was showing others, were feelings of relief, anger, shame and so many other things that I did not feel comfortable with. I needed to tell someone about this and I did not feel comfortable sharing it with my family or the few friends I had.
I went for my first session and the first thing I noticed was how young she was! I was not put off by her young appearance, in fact I found it quite sweet. She looked like one of my granddaughters. I guessed she must have been in her late twenties based on the dates of her qualifications. But she looked not much more than 20. I thought to myself that counselling must keep you looking young!
She had a warm smile and asked a simple question which was something like “so – tell me everything”. I felt a bit anxious, but there was also a thrill – no one had ever just said to me “speak!” before. I knew it was all going to be confidential – we’d talked about the “contract”. So all I could do now was speak. And speak I did! The hour was up so quickly and I had said so much, yet I’d barely scratched the surface. I couldn’t wait to come back the next week and tell her more. One week I brought photos. Those early session really were just telling her all about my life.
After about 6 weeks, she began to say things back to me, make little statements about what I was saying like “that sounds painful” or “and this made you angry?”. Just here and there she would notice things that I had said, but picked out the emotions that I had ignored, not noticed, avoided. And piece by piece I put back together the fragments of this broken relationship that was me and my mother. My Mum died peacefully. It was not peaceful for me. My Mum died probably feeling loved by me. I did not feel loved by her. My Mum left me with anger and shame and the scars from years of abuse. And admitting to my counsellor that this was indeed painful and yes it did make me very angry was like a weight falling off me.
Session after session. Sometimes I would cry, sometimes we would sit in silence. Sometimes there was laughter – more than once I found myself in hysterical fits of laughter!
At first I didn’t tell anyone I was seeing a counsellor. As the sessions went on I realized that I had been given a gift and I should share this with people so they could experience it too. So I told my family and friends and suggested they all get therapy too. “what for?” they would say and I responded “anything! Just for fun if you like” Because I knew if they went it would change them too like it changed me.