To My Client in the Throes of Grief
-
Counsellor Klara Sharples shares her perspective on the first session with a new client, seeking support after a bereavement
-
We have bereavement counsellors available on Welldoing here
Beginning was gone and yet the end was nowhere to be seen. The autumn has shown its presence with relentless enthusiasm for grey skies, leaving the memory of summer clinging on in albums trapped in phone storage clouds somewhere abstract.
The days were shorter, the practice became busier with people looking for mental health support. A pattern that came with the end of summer every year.
I had a new client. She came in with hesitation in her green deep eyes. She was here but there was something so palpably fragile about her that I knew that she was ready to flee.
I could see that it had taken an inner battle to open the door to this unknown environment. She scanned the room with a curious yet weary look on her face and chose the chair in the most distant corner of my therapeutic room. I smiled and offered her my eyes; she declined nervously.
I waited, and let her take in her new environment. She sat on the edge of the chair, reminding me of a child who is not sure why she was called to the Headmaster's office. Every inch of her body spoke a clear message: "I am not staying, this is not what I need on this cold Tuesday morning. I shall run away any minute now!”
I was patient, calm and silent for a few seconds and then, when I thought that she looked like she was not going to run away, I said one simple sentence. “Welcome to your first counselling session, to your safe space."
I knew that safe was not how she felt quite yet; but I hoped that my message to her was clear. I wanted her to understand that I had one role. That role was to listen to her, I was there to assist her in her grief. I was there to be with her to process what happened to her. I was there for her.
“How can I help?"
She looked at me for the first time, properly like she remembered why she was here.
Her exhausted looking eyes held the raw evidence of sleepless nights, they were heavy with recognisable signs of millions of tears shed and another million ready to come. She opened her mouth and nothing came... no sound, no words, no story… just a sigh that expressed the feeling of emptiness and sorrow too raw to be contemplated into articulate sentences.
I held that space, knowing that she will find her way to tell me when the words finally come. I understood that sometimes it takes more than a few breaths to find the slippery words that can release pain and offer space from the unbearable suffocating feeling that can occupy heart when someone looses their loved one.
At last, she took a deep breath and whispered with a hint of resignation in her depleted voice: “My daughter thinks that I needed to see someone after my David…” She swallowed the rest of that sentence with suppressed emotions. The tears were close to the surface again.
I sat there, leaning into her space, into the unfinished sentence. I reflected to her what had been said:
“What about you, do you think you need to speak to someone after your David…?”
I knew that the word DEATH was coming with its ruthless aftermath for my new client but she was not ready to say that word out loud as yet.
There was a gentle nod and tears came in full rivers now.
“My David, he was…”
My new client, let’s call her Hannah, lost her husband suddenly after 36 years of marriage. Childhood sweethearts, they worked on their marriage, survived cancer, long-term infertility issues and just celebrated the birth of their first grandchild. His death came out of nowhere and stories were left untold.
So we started together journey with the grief marching in front of us like a bossy manipulator. Grief sneaked up on us and took charge. It played hide and seek, it sulked in its hiding places and jumped out when she didn’t expect it.
Grief stormed in, took control over everything and smashed everything in sight to pieces. It behaved in a way that grief does. Anger, denial, disbelief, despair, bargaining and numbness.
I am a grief counsellor and I understand. I can sit with you while you work through it.
Klara Sharples is a verified Welldoing counsellor in Liverpool
