22/11/2022
You’ve been carrying it on your back for so long. You’ve felt your shoulders weighed down by your past’s burdens, sometimes for several years, even decades. You’ve come so far, even though those wounds have not been processed, and the ache that permeates your body and mind has become your world. It needs to change for you to stand up straight, a desire you are only now realising grips your heart. Acknowledging that you are not okay creates the incentive to seek treatment. You are aware that the root lies in trauma, and you are referred for trauma therapy.
You feel fear; will the therapist make you relive this trauma? Must you dissect and describe every detail of these events, feel the prickle of old discomfort that comes with mental images that you have deliberately suppressed, and voluntarily allow them to take centre stage? You wonder if you will cry during the session. Is it normal to cry? What if you don’t cry? Does that make you weird? You are somehow curious and doubtful at the same time. Are you about to change your life, or eat the magic beans? The day comes and your therapist starts to break the ice; you’re getting to know each other before anything happens but you’re impatient. You want to know what they intend to do. You’ve researched the different methods obsessively. You read The Body Keeps the Score in ten days. Something sticks out. It’s called ‘EMDR’. You want an explanation; the internet, as usual, spoke in generalisations.
The therapist explains: EMDR is Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. This is the next year of your life.
1. Making a plan
One month later and you’ve begun the therapeutic process: first you decide what traumatic event is still affecting you today. What haunts you? You’ve been pondering this; there are a few to choose from. Upon your decision you are instructed to pick two or three ‘snapshots’ from that event, images that are stark in your memory, specific moments that encapsulate the pain of the event. You’re breaking down the trauma into manageable pieces. The first snapshot jumps out at you; it has lived in your consciousness for many years. You have decided.
Part two of the plan is establishing your ‘team’. You pick people from your life, past or present, who are a part of your imaginary support battalion. You need three protective people, three caring people, and one wise person, who you can bring in when you rewrite this place of pain as a place of empowerment. It can be anyone, alive or dead, human or animal. You think of your friends, family, teachers, even your old dog, and smile wistfully. You will not be alone in this trek.
Part three of the plan is creating your mental ‘safe space’. After the processing session is done you need a place in your mind that is safe and tranquil for you to retreat to. Reprocessing is intense, confronting and exhausting and after the hour is up you must walk out of the door and back into the world; it is imperative that you end it in a place of peace. You remember a night when you were eighteen and dancing on a beach. It was New Year’s Eve. Bright lights twinkled far away, but it was the light of the moon, glancing off the water, that lit your movement. You cartwheeled through soft sand and sang a song. You had never felt so peaceful before, like you could do anything. The soft lapping of the waves accompanied your ballad. It was like a dream. You decide, in that therapist’s office, that this is the place you will retreat to. Your mental toolbelt is full and you’re ready to go.
2. Processing the trauma
‘EM’ stands for ‘Eye Movement’. While your eyes move your brain will reprocess what has been stuck. Your therapist holds two fingers up and you focus on them. They move them from side to side and your eyes follow until they are in a gentle rhythm, flickering. Your therapist begins to talk as you think about the image you have chosen of when your life came crashing down. What comes up? A few words come to mind, snippets and incomplete phrases, details you had forgotten. Go with that. A single word appears in your mind as the memory of the past washes over you. ‘Trapped’. Periodically they say, You’re safe here. It’s old stuff. No one can hurt you now. Your eyes continue to follow your therapist’s fingers. New images arise. Faces from your past, feelings you had long buried, and pains you had anaesthetised for half your life, come to the fore. What do you see. You stammer. Go with that. You’re safe here. It’s old stuff. Forty-five minutes pass and you are surrounded by images, words and feelings you didn’t even know lived inside of you. You’re making connections that long eluded you. The therapist puts their hand down. We’re going to stop there. How are you?
You reflect on what has happened. You’re overwhelmed. You didn’t know you could feel this way, like you’ve run a marathon, even though you never left your seat. You want to cry but you’re too tired. You just faced it head on. Let’s go to your safe space. Imagine it. Focus on your senses. What do you see, feel, hear, smell? You sit back with your eyes closed. You feel sand between your fingers as you cartwheel across the beach. You hear water whooshing and smell salt on the air. It’s quiet and the moon smiles down at you. Lights glisten in the distance but you’re alone here. The sand is wet as your run into the water, the ripples lapping your ankles. You feel it between your toes.
You open your eyes and you’re back in the therapy room. Same time next week?
The next three days are hard. You have trouble getting out of bed, exhausted. Your therapist has explained that the reprocessing doesn’t stop when you walk out of the room but continues for a few days afterwards. You’re keenly aware of this as your body struggles. You have to trust that this is the beginning of the end for the pain you have long carried, and while the road ahead is long, and you feel weak right now, it will one day bear fruit.
3. Three months later
You’re back in your snapshot. Today is the last session for this one and is the day you’re going to change what happened. Your eyes continue to move as you reimagine the scene but with you in control. Bring in a member of your team. As you watch the fingers move back and forward, you mentally bring in someone to hold your hand. Someone to help you fight. Someone to cheer you on. With your team around you become your own superhero. You’re no longer crouching, scared. It’s not about forgetting what really happened but reimagining yourself in a place of strength. Realisation dawns, the fear is gone. You no longer have one foot in the past, one foot in the present, but are standing fully in the latter. It’s a historical pain; it will always be there but is not infecting you now.
Next week you’re on to the next snapshot. You’re more optimistic now. You are not a slave to your past. Everything aches, and you desperately need a nap, and maybe a gin and tonic, but in the past hour you slayed the dragon, danced on the beach, and felt free, for the first time in a long time.