Her Unspeakable Trauma Healed Through EMDR: Guest Blog by Lynn
Healing trauma through EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
You know fear is a hell of a thing, and when you live with it constantly, you forget what it’s like to live any other way after a while. I have suffered with PTSD for nearly a decade. In my early twenties, I was kidnapped and sexually assaulted before I escaped with my life after 3 days. I’ll spare you the unpleasant details, as they don’t really matter in the long run. At least they don’t matter to me anymore.
Before the birth of my son at 32, I dealt with the fear through self-medication, mostly with alcohol and meaningless sex, but I always mixed it up with various drugs and binge eating. I suppose for a long time, I didn’t realize I had PTSD because I was in an emotional and physical fog. After my son was born though, and I didn’t have the choice to deal with my issues through alcohol, everything started to come to the surface. I was like a dormant volcano about to erupt. My emotions were out of control and I was living in almost constant fear. I was afraid to sleep and had severely unwanted thoughts about tragic things happening to my child. When you experience trauma and realize that the world is an ugly place, it seems almost impossible to protect your child from it. Fear consumed my every thought and shame was the overall feeling I had most of the time.
This was about the time I discovered the podcast. I had mixed feelings about it at first because sometimes it would trigger the fear, but for the most part I felt like I had a community of people who understood me, oddly enough, without even interacting with any of them. While listening, I was introduced to EMDR and started researching it relentlessly. It made a lot of sense to me, the connection to REM sleep and processing memories. I haven’t slept well in years, and my nightmares are very vivid. The idea is that when our brains are in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, is when we are dreaming and processing events and memories that our brains either determine to be useful to us or that need to be disposed of. When we experience trauma, those memories become stuck and we never process them. This then manifests itself in other physical and mental ways that is usually damaging to us.
I don’t know why I waited so long to start therapy; I suppose I wasn’t ready, but I finally found a great therapist in my area that uses EMDR. I have to say, I am shocked at how well it has worked for me. After the first session, I had one hell of a week. It stirred up so many emotions in me, mostly about my childhood and less about the trauma. I experienced a lot of anger and sadness in that next week, but in sifting through those emotions, I realized something. The fear was gone. My unwanted thoughts almost disappeared, but even when they would make an appearance, I was able to think about it briefly and let it go. I realized it was only a stupid thought and not reality.
I have been seeing my therapist once a week for about two months and each session brings something else out of me, and while there is some pain there and some more stuff coming to the surface, I feel like I can handle it for the first time in my life. I feel like a survivor instead of a victim. Its hard work, but I’m finally ready to take it on. My therapist says that results don’t typically happen this quickly unless a person is truly ready to deal with trauma. I certainly don’t want to set a person up for false expectations, but for me, personally, EMDR is saving my life. It’s like my brain is a computer and someone is cleaning out all of the old files.
What I have noticed as well, it that I am not used to the stability. When you’re life is a roller coaster for so long, you get used to ups and downs and sometimes get a high off of the drama that comes with that. I don’t know how to function when things aren’t going haywire. My therapist says stability can be hard when you try it for the first time. I still have a long way to go and I am a big believer in therapy now that I have found a good therapist for once. You have to be honest and not be afraid to fall to pieces in front of someone, but good therapists do exist. So I keep going, putting one foot in front of the other and trusting that my body and mind can heal itself if I let go of my old ways. It seems to be working well. I still don’t sleep well and I still get depressed, but the fear is gone and I consider that success. One thing at a time.
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