Therapy...

I have not talked about me started therapy really. It was a step I knew I had to take, but was unsure what would come of it. 

Well...

I felt as though my therapist couldn't help me and I knew everything he was already telling me. I have tried for years to fix me and find peace within myself...to feel love for who I am and not hate.

So...

Yesterday we actually made some progress. I came to understand that I am using techniques to help me that are only avoiding the problem instead of dealing with it. I have had anxiety since I was a little girl. I NEVER learned how to process the horrors of my past. A little girl should not have ever had such horrible things happen and not be helped or fixed. Ignoring it does not make it go away. That is why I am worried about my kids even though they are teenagers, I know they have been traumatized too. Maybe not the same as me, but trauma is trauma.

So since I have gone through a trauma recently that was the SCARIEST and most invasive unpleasant thing I have  EVER gone through. I realize that I need to finally teach myself how to process these things and not let them build into the nightmare I live inside...

Linkin Park's song Iridescent describes the way I felt in the hospital and now. I just have to learn to let it go...

When you were standing in the wake of devastation
When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
With the cataclysm raining down
Your insides crying, "Save me now"
You were there, impossibly alone.

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failures all you've known.
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go.
Let it go.

And in a burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of tempered grace
Falling into empty space
With no one there to catch you in their arms.

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failures all you've known.
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go.
Let it go.

So after hearing about the next step in my therapy is EMDR, I looked it up to better understand how it works and what I could expect. He told me he would use the method below or paddles. I think though it will be the light bar.

I have copied an article, because I didn't want to type it all out in my own words. 

I only share this with one thing in mind...

Maybe helping someone else who is suffering. Also so people know that I am trying really hard to be a different person. A happy person who can enjoy whatever life she has left.

 

What is the actual EMDR session like?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma. EMDR is a set of standardized protocols that incorporates elements from many different treatment approaches. To date, EMDR therapy has helped millions of people of all ages relieve many types of psychological stress. Below is a Brief Description of EMDR Therapy.

Francine Shapiro developed Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in 1987, after observing that the mind can heal itself during rapid eye movement or REM sleep. It is used to work successfully with trauma, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, anxiety and a host of other health problems.

When we are traumatized the memory and emotions of the event can become “frozen” in our brain, in a "raw" and emotional form, rather than in a verbal more fluid and flowing “story” mode. This becomes an isolated memory network with its own emotions and physical sensations disconnected from the brain’s cortex. Whenever we experience similar events that remind us of the original traumatic event, we re-experience the thoughts and emotions frozen in our limbic system from the trauma. It is hard to live in the present moment. Often you feel cloudy, confused and afraid without always knowing why. EMDR helps create the connections between your brain’s memory networks, enabling your brain to process the traumatic memory in a very natural way.

One treatment is to use a small machine, which has hand pulsars. First you determine how fast and strong you want the pulsars and then we work with reframing the feelings and messages that you have frozen in your body from trauma. There is a prodigal that I use for this work.

With repeated sets of using the pulsars, the memory tends to change in such a way that it loses its painful intensity and simply becomes a neutral memory of an event in the past. Other associated memories may also heal at the same time. This linking of related memories can lead to a dramatic and rapid improvement in many aspects of your life.

The pulsars are also used to help core feelings of relaxation, healthy self-images, and safety images. The bilatel stimulation felt in the body through the hands helps positive thoughts and feelings to fully and strongly anchor in the felt sense of the body. The client is in complete control of the session and usually they feel empowered, alert and very present after a session. Reprocessing is experienced as something that happens spontaneously, and new connections and insights are felt to arise quite naturally from within. As a result, most people experience EMDR as being a natural and very empowering therapy.