A move, a loss, a separation, a job that ended

Ordinary tasks take more out of you than they should. Concentration slips. Small things bring an unexpectedly large reaction, and the large thing itself can feel strangely distant.

There is often a sense of being out of step: everyone around you has returned to normal and you are still somewhere else.

A change of this kind does not only remove a person, a place or a role. It removes the routine built around it, and quite often part of how you understood yourself.

Rebuilding that takes time, and it rarely moves in a straight line. A good fortnight followed by a bad week is normal, not a relapse.

First, somewhere to say the whole of it without protecting the listener, which is difficult to do with family who are living through the same event.

Then the slower work: making sense of what changed, allowing the parts you were not able to feel at the time, and gradually putting something back into the shape of the week. Where anger, guilt or relief are in the mix, those are treated as ordinary rather than wrong.

Mostly listening. I ask what happened, what has been hardest since, and what you are managing on your own at the moment. You set the pace, and nothing has to be told in order.

If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, please do not wait for an appointment. Contact emergency services or go to your nearest hospital. This practice is not an emergency service.