Down the Tunnel It Goes

I had my first session of EMDR this last week. It has helped tremendously, so far! I have not yet had to terrible of nightmares and I've been able to remain in the moment better than I had been in the past couple of weeks. I'm really hoping that this continues to be a good form of therapy for me.

Just in case you guys are at all curious about it, I wanted to share a little bit about what my experience was like.

So first thing that happened when I went in was that the therapist asks what I want to work on. I went in with a very specific plan to work on exbest friend's stuff because it has been causing me a great deal of distress for a long time now.

She gave me the little buzzing paddles and asked me to pick the intensity and speed that I wanted to use for the memory. I set it accordingly and she had me describe the memory. She says I can tell her as little or as much as I want. She kept asking questions, as counselors/therapists do, but I didn't go into as much detail as I had to using exposure therapy (you have to use as much detail as possible).

We started with e getting comfortable and holding the paddles. We started with letting my mind go to the memory. She checked in with me to have me describe what I was feeling and going through. We went another cycle and the memory and feelings got more intense. She checked in again. This cycle lasted several times, then she had me sit with the memory and the physical feelings and the thoughts that came up. After a few cycles of that (memory + buzzing, then a check-in), the memory started to reveal several things to me.

Personally, this process brought up the ways I tried to fight and then showed me the 7+ ways I was triggered that reverted my brain into trauma mode and sent it back to it's original conditioning. While this likely does not make much sense without going through the process, it was incredibly freeing to be able to go back into a memory that my brain was constantly reliving for months and to be able to process it with such clarity.

Then, as I started to process the triggers, and what I had done to prevent the cursed even from occurring in the first place, the oddest thing happened in my brain and I saw it as clear as a movie: the memory faded and started going down a tunnel. It was partially filed in said tunnel, but not like my normal filing where I put it away to try to process it later with my counselor. No, this time it was filed as something I had survived and what I had done right and why I couldn't stop it.

Now, this memory is much less disturbing and my brain has released it from continually coming up and causing nightmares, flashbacks, and the subsequent dissociation/depression. I've been able to wake up without sleeping 14+ hours, be on time, get ready without losing track of time, and I've been engaged and happy instead of a constant flat affect and no energy. All of these things are my signs of dissociation and depression.

I'm not saying that this process was not difficult. I cried. I cried like big, burning tears from a place of deep hurt and betrayal. However, it was far less distressing than continually having your brain try to process a memory and failing because you are stuck between short and long term memory, and you can't find the reason/logic/emotion between anything. My brain was ridiculously overwhelmed and this allowed me to process it effectively.

Guys, I'm very grateful for my counselor recommending this type of therapy. I had come a long way in counseling, but there are things that set us back on our road to recovery. Sometimes these roadblocks refuse to move and our brains cannot go "there" to knock the block down because it is too distressing. At this point in my recovery, I was able to go through the EMDR process and receive relief and help. When the counselor at my college (who was 1] untrained in trauma help and 2] unpracticed in EMDR) tried to use this therapy, I was too far in the trauma brain and had not processed anything at all. By starting in therapy/counseling first, getting to a place of healing, then trying this intensive therapy, I was able to finally have coping skills in place and be able to understand my recovery process much better.

I'll keep you guys posted on if it continues to be helpful or if I start getting some of the terrible side effects. So far, however, I'm hanging in there.

EMDR

When I went through my first traumatic instance with ex-boyfriend, I went to my college and attempted to get counseling. The counselors there are not familiar with trauma, they counsel students more through depression, anxiety, problems with school, and other such "student" problems.

One of the counselors was trained in EMDR... I think... She told me she was not super familiar and that she would need to reference the manual frequently to help me through the process. We didn't talk about anything that would have normally been covered in counseling, we just jumped right in to EMDR processes. I couldn't even hold it together to find my safe place without crying hysterically. Okay, not hysterically, but I couldn't breathe enough to talk using more than 1 syllable words at a time.

Fast-forward to my last counseling session: It was my third week in a row where I cried and dissociated. So, at the end, she suggested I try EMDR because I have been shutting down a lot lately and after all of the progress I had made, I was starting to rapidly backslide to where I was on week 2 or 3.

So my homework for the week was to just think about calling someone about EMDR. Well, I went to work after that counseling session, Googled all about the EMDR process: what to expect, what it would be like, what the goal is, etc. I proceeded to email my sweet little counselor right away at like 0300 that I would give it a shot. She woke up, sent me a list of names, and I made an appointment when I woke up at 3 p.m.

I'm still really nervous for what I'm going to have to go through, what I'm going to uncover, and what I will have to re-live, but I'm hoping it goes well and helps me. I've heard that nightmares are common and that it is common to need to process what happened in the session for the remainder of the night or even for the next couple of days.

I had my first session yesterday and it went well. We did a "practice" round with a "lightly distressing" memory so I could see how the process worked. I chose traffic, and our practice session made me surprisingly less anxious about the prospect of sitting in traffic. Granted, it's not a traumatic memory, but I hope that it will work similarly for the bad stuff. I've heard from several people who have had parents or friends go through this process that it has helped them.

I'll keep y'all posted.