And where have you found help for yourself at?
I see a counsellor, in February or March when I started getting really bad, I was at my GP just for an ordinary smear, and I said I think I’m going phone to Cruse or something like that, one of these people that you have the names of, I could do with talking to somebody about this, and they said, “Oh we’ve got somebody in the practice.”
Oh that was good.
There was a three month waiting list, but I said, “Oh put my name down anyway because I think I could do with something.” And I got home from work that day and there was a phone call that said, “The doctor thinks it would be a good idea if he saw you now. Come on Tuesday”.
Oh that was good, so that’s paid for by the National Health Service?
That’s paid for, no actually, the GP himself employs this person.
What so the practice?
The practice, the practice does yes, and they’re not a, I am an anti counsellor person, I don’t know what you know, but I was always very sceptical about this contemplating your navel, but she described herself as a Heinz 57 varieties, and it was a lot of different skills, and she has the most incredible, she messes with my mind if you like,
Does she, does she call it anything? Does she give it a label?
I think its…
Cognitive behavioural therapy, or something like that?
Something like that; neuro-linguistic programming I think.
Oh right.
And I’ll give you an example of the very first thing she did with me, which she copies in very similar things. One of the children decided to have his children christened thinking, “Let’s cheer Mum up with a happy family event.” Without actually realising how traumatic; this was about five months after Russell died, and I at one stage thought I can’t even go to this event, because it was putting me in a church, with the couple with the children, and the wife’s parents standing there, and me on my own with my big tall son beside me. And how can I do that? I can’t, simply cannot do that and in a public place and maybe cry, I can’t do it, , very panicky about it. And she did a thing which was she had me visualise what it looked like, and then slowly over a period of two or three minutes I walked back to the church, so the visual image got smaller and then turned it into a black and white photograph and then it was no longer straight in front of me, she had me go to the back corner of the church, so it was off centre, and by then I was too far away to see properly and I actually felt the whole tension draining out of me while I actually did that, as I did this visualisation thing, or imaginary, visual you know, and that took away the kind of anxiety I had about it, and I was able to cope with it.
She did that before you went to it?
Yes, absolutely yes. So I was able to think about it, and think yes, I can go to this christening, and then the other daughter got married. She got engaged two weeks before he died and then got married a year later and a similar thing, “How can, how can I go to a wedding and marry my daughter, our daughter, without him, it’s criminal, it’s wicked it should not be happening.” And then a bit of blame for the bloke who caused, made this situation arise, and again she did a similar thing with that, and she does a lot of a very clever things about how your imagine, how you visualise things, it’s very clever. Very clever.
So can you give me the, another example of the wedding, did she make you think about it in a different way as well?
No, we talked about how to have him there, and the different ways to have him there, and so we did actually have a photograph on the table, with some beautiful flowers, not in front of me, off side, off side, so that he was there but I didn’t have to look at him, because if I’d looked at him it would have made me cry. But in fact when it, and then we’d talked about what I’d think about and how I would think and as a result the wedding was a, a, well they were definitely, it was a happy day.
So she helped you change the way you might think about it?
Absolutely, completely and utterly. Yes. So it’s not a, it’s not a contemplate your navel, and how do you feel about things. It’s strategies for coping.
So she’s professionally trained?
Oh incredibly professionally trained, incredibly professionally trained. And I don’t think I could have survived , well of course I would have done but she has enabled me to, and when I have issues that I have to deal with…
Can you still go and see her?
I can see her for as long as, the words are, “for as long as I like, whenever I want.” Well not whenever I want, I can go about once a month, every five or six weeks. But because of the trauma round about the second anniversary she did say if I wanted I could ring her up, and after the, that trauma she was able to put things into perspective, so she’s very clever.
That’s good.
And I would, I would recommend it to everybody.
