I was surprised at how tough the therapy session yesterday was.

It started ok.  The psychologist jumped right in to ask me to describe to her my thoughts about death, and how I feel when I get them. That was easy enough.  But then she just kept asking more questions.  She wanted me to describe my thoughts in more detail and it got quite uncomfortable for me.  It was like, she was making me think about it and talk, rather than just talk.

It progressed on to what do I think will happen when I die.  I rambled on for ages about all the different possibilities of what 'could' happen... heaven and hell, reincarnation, or, the worst (and possibly most likely) possibility, just becoming nothing.  It's that thought that drives me nuts when I think too deeply about it.  Imagining being nothing.

Then we talked about what I want to happen to my body when I die, and I said I do not want to be cremated.  Everyone in my family knows this.  I'm terrified of fire and when I was a kid I used to have a recurring nightmare where I was at the bottom of the stairs in my house, and someone or something was upstairs where the fire was, and I wanted to save them but I couldn't.  I don't want my body to be burnt.  It's not natural.  At least if I get buried, then all the nutrients and life energy tied up in my body can return to the earth I came from, and continue the cycle of life.  Being cremated, all I would become is pollution.  She asked if it's important for my body to remain intact and unburnt when I die, and will I still need it after death.  I wasn't sure, but probably not.

Then she asked me, what would be the advantages and disadvantages of dying, and of living forever.  And I realised that to live forever, you'd also have to not get any older.  And then she asked me how would it be to live forever and watch the people around me grow old and die.  So I realised that eternal life would only really work if I didn't get old, and neither did the people I love.  And suddenly I realised that living forever would actually be just as scary as being dead forever.

So all in all, it was a tough session, and very difficult to talk about.  But I think it helped.  We'll continue next week but so far, I'm pleased with how it's going.  It's like, the way she asks things makes me turn my thoughts in a slightly diferent direction that I wouldn't have done by myself.

V