I recently read an article talking about famous artists, thinkers, philosophers, and the like, and how many of them loved to take long walks. Aristotle, Muir, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and more. It's been said that Charles Dickens used to walk 20-30 miles a day. While I walk anywhere from 5-11 miles a day, I don't think I could walk 30! Anyways, I was out on my daily walk yesterday when my mind wandered back to something that's crossed it before- the singularity. I'd planned on writing my last bit about my Oregon vacation, but I'll save that for later. I want to talk about the singularity today while thoughts from yesterday are still in the back of my mind.
I was well into my 3rd mile yesterday, when a seemingly innocuous pop song came on. It was "Talking Body" by Tove Lo. For whatever reason, the lyric "On and on. On and on and on" sent a jolt through my body. I've become really attuned to these blips of anxiety as they hit me, so I zeroed in on the feeling right away and began to think about it.
One of the first most intense emotions I remember feeling, even as a little girl, is a feeling that I can't even put words to. It's a feeling of pressure; unrelenting, unabated pressure. It's the feeling that this feeling would never end. By feeling, I guess I mean the pressure. I think I was so young at the time, I did't know what emotion I was feeling. Perhaps fear? Unrelenting fear. The most disturbing part of remembering this emotion is the feeling that it will literally never end. I can put more feelings with this emotion, including feeling so paralyzed I can't open my mouth to make a sound, and something so heavy sitting on my chest that I feel like I'm being smothered. My breathing becomes shallow because I feel like I can't breathe. I'm not sure what the "memory" is that is associated with this "emotion" but this same feeling reoccurs sometimes during Ambien dreams or night terrors. On and on. On and on and on, is how the feeling felt. Never ending.
The girl who grew up with all these feelings and emotions felt lost. Unhappy, fearful, and with an anxious tummy most of the time. That girl soothed herself with make-believe Barbie games, hoards of library books, and her favorite foods. When she turned 12 and the boys took notice, she soothed herself that way. And when she was 16, she discovered alcohol. Then marijuana. Then over-the-counter sleeping pills. Then cigarettes. Sex. Shopping. Anything to fill that void.
What is the attractiveness of all these substances? They numbed the girl. They made her feel like a different person, a happy person whose body actually felt good. For a couple of blissful hours, that skin-crawling anxiety that makes one want to rip their face off would be gone. She would be free. She could laugh and talk to strangers. She could flirt with the cute boy and put her hand upon his arm. She could, for 2 seconds, not think about whatever it is that is inside her that makes her want to end it all.
And what is it? It screams at the girl every single day, telling her she cannot go on even one more second, that it demands something. Because it is never satisfied. It is a pit that will never be filled. It is a black hole within the girl that only seems to get bigger with age. She dances around the event horizon, never getting close enough to reach the point of no return. Coming close, yes, but never fully engulfed by the darkness. She has never tried cocaine or heroin, lost all of her family and support, spent all her money on drugs, and been forced into rehab. She has never cheated on her husband, forcing him to divorce and leave her. She has never had a mental breakdown, forcing her into a pysch eval at a mental institution. Because she dances. She flirts, but she does not fall.
It tells the girl that it will get her someday. Someday, when her guard is down and she's had too many drinks or drugs, it will eviscerate her. It will put temptation in her way that it knows she will not have to will power to deny. Because she is weak. She is bad. She has no self-control. The singularity will find a way to show the world that.
And then, it will win.
Because that's what it wants. Ultimately, it wants the girl to have nothing and no one left so it can end it all.
I call "it" my Dark Passenger. That ol' Dexter reference again. I fight "it" everyday. When I have dark thoughts, I realize it's because I feel like I'm going to be doing battle every single day for the rest of my life. And that in itself is what's unbearable. I picture how utterly long 30 to 40 years could be, and I picture feeling the way I feel every. single. day. It's a scary thought. It makes me wonder if that's why some people actually go through with suicide. Because they can't image having to feel what they are feeling for the rest of their lives.
Does everyone have a singularity? A portion of themselves that's so dark that no light can escape from it? A portion so dark you can't gaze upon it and see anything at all? In my (non-scientific) opinion, it's the singularity that drives addiction. How? The singularity causes a person to feel a certain way. If that person happens to try drugs or alcohol, they are going to discover that these things make them feel better. This will lead to the person seeking them out more and more often, until eventually they become an uncontrollable force in their lives. A person without a singularity isn't going to find the same "relief" that a person with a singularity does and therefore, they aren't likely to seek it out as much. Can't you see this is why some people who try drugs do not become addicts?
It's this belief that led me to follow Amber Lyon and her website Reset.Me. I've been looking into medicines like psilocybin, ayahuasca, and Ibogaine. Numerous studies are showing that these medicines are having a great effect on depression, anxiety, PTSD, and addiction. I'm really beginning to think that in order to feel better, in order to destroy that part of me that says "I WANT I WANT I WANT", I'm going to have to get rid of the black hole. As of right now, I don't know what the answer is. I feel stuck. I'm making progress in therapy, but it's frustrating because I know the Dark Passenger is still there. It still beckons and calls every day. It wants me to drink vodka everyday. It wants me to smoke cigarettes everyday. It wishes it could get its hands on some Xanex, Vicodin, or Percocet. Some days I do great ignoring the requests of the singularity. Other days are an abject failure. I don't feel like I'm getting the bottom of things. I don't know where the bottom is. I don't know what caused the singularity or what traumatic memories linger that makes it remain. All I do know is that the research being done on medicines like psilocybin, ayahuasca, or Iboga are finding that they may actually repair neural pathways. Pathways that may have been decimated by trauma.
Could this be the answer to the singularity? A destroyed neural pathway that could possibly be repaired?
It's a tantalizing thought.
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Mourning All That Will Never Be
I go back and forth with my mourning. Just when I think I've processed everything there is to process, more shit comes gurgling up. Thrown in my face. Tearing my heart into tiny little jagged pieces.
I mourn for that baby girl that I suspect was abused as an infant. About 2 years ago, I recovered a hazy memory of a baby in a baby bath, one toy navy boat, and my uncle. Due to the fact I was in a baby bath (you know, one of those little baths you place inside the actual bathtub), I've estimated my age at 6 months, maybe a year. Because I'm so young in this memory, I consistently and constantly question this memory. But when I'm feeling healthy, I try to tell myself to just accept it, not to question it to death. My point in all that is that I feel I never stood a chance. Corrupted from the beginning. What could I have been if this any of this had never happened?
I mourn for the girl who might have been happy.
I mourn for the girl that might never have suffered depression, anxiety, PTSD, insomnia, chronic headaches, and IBS.
I mourn for the girl who didn't respect her body, or even herself.
I mourn for the girl who may have been outgoing. I mourn for the girl who may have been popular, who may have made the cheerleading squad. I mourn for the girl who may have become homecoming queen.
I mourn for the girl that got bullied for being different. I mourn for the little girl who looked in the mirror, and only saw glasses, braces, chubby cheeks, and a mushroom haircut.
I mourn for the girl that may have been a doctor. That may have gone to law school.
I mourn for the girl that may have had children of her own.
I mourn for the unborn babies she will never have, and the experiences that won't darken her doorstep. She decided when she was 12 that she would never have children, and now she is 32. Childless. Stuck with a biological clock that never started ticking. Only the memory of the day the decision was made.
I can vividly recall that day when I was 12. I was terribly sad that day. This wasn't unusual. It was summer, and I was laying on my back in the grass in the backyard of my parents' house. The clouds weren't flying by especially fast that day, they were just big fluffy air masses lazily making their way across my field of vision. Like large, white cotton balls among the brilliant cerulean sky. I heard shrieks and happy screams of the neighbor kids riding their bikes up and down the street, throwing rocks at each other, playing games. Those happy shrieks felt like a knife to my heart, and in the moment I told myself I would never have kids. I would never subject another human being to the awfulness that was life. How could I willingly bring someone into the world when everything hurt so bad? I could not, I would not. And my mind has never changed.
I mourn that I will never have the experiences that all my former friends are having right now. Some of them have 3 to 4 kids! Pregnancy announcements and baby pictures fill my Facebook feed. Sometimes I smile, with tears in my eyes. Sometimes I just have to close the laptop, the pain is too great. I mourn that I will never experience "the greatest of all loves". I mourn that I will never see my husband's happy face when I tell him I'm pregnant. I mourn that I will never see that grin when his children take their first steps. Say their first word. I mourn that I am selfish and I worry about who will take care of me when I'm old.
I mourn for the girl who only felt hate and anger. I mourn for the people she hurt when she was younger, and didn't know any better.
I mourn for the girl who saw forgiveness as weak.
I mourn for the teenager who could never let go.
I mourn for the girl who spent half her teen years and all of her 20's numbing herself with alcohol, painkillers, and benzo's, with absolutely no inkling of "why?".
I mourn all of this. And then I try to let it go.
This is life, take it or leave it. I could sit here all day with the "what if's?" and the "who knows?". Everything that has come to pass, I cannot change. I can only try to accept it.
After all, it's made me who I am today.
I mourn for that baby girl that I suspect was abused as an infant. About 2 years ago, I recovered a hazy memory of a baby in a baby bath, one toy navy boat, and my uncle. Due to the fact I was in a baby bath (you know, one of those little baths you place inside the actual bathtub), I've estimated my age at 6 months, maybe a year. Because I'm so young in this memory, I consistently and constantly question this memory. But when I'm feeling healthy, I try to tell myself to just accept it, not to question it to death. My point in all that is that I feel I never stood a chance. Corrupted from the beginning. What could I have been if this any of this had never happened?
I mourn for the girl who might have been happy.
I mourn for the girl that might never have suffered depression, anxiety, PTSD, insomnia, chronic headaches, and IBS.
I mourn for the girl who didn't respect her body, or even herself.
I mourn for the girl who may have been outgoing. I mourn for the girl who may have been popular, who may have made the cheerleading squad. I mourn for the girl who may have become homecoming queen.
I mourn for the girl that got bullied for being different. I mourn for the little girl who looked in the mirror, and only saw glasses, braces, chubby cheeks, and a mushroom haircut.
I mourn for the girl that may have been a doctor. That may have gone to law school.
I mourn for the girl that may have had children of her own.
I mourn for the unborn babies she will never have, and the experiences that won't darken her doorstep. She decided when she was 12 that she would never have children, and now she is 32. Childless. Stuck with a biological clock that never started ticking. Only the memory of the day the decision was made.
I can vividly recall that day when I was 12. I was terribly sad that day. This wasn't unusual. It was summer, and I was laying on my back in the grass in the backyard of my parents' house. The clouds weren't flying by especially fast that day, they were just big fluffy air masses lazily making their way across my field of vision. Like large, white cotton balls among the brilliant cerulean sky. I heard shrieks and happy screams of the neighbor kids riding their bikes up and down the street, throwing rocks at each other, playing games. Those happy shrieks felt like a knife to my heart, and in the moment I told myself I would never have kids. I would never subject another human being to the awfulness that was life. How could I willingly bring someone into the world when everything hurt so bad? I could not, I would not. And my mind has never changed.
I mourn that I will never have the experiences that all my former friends are having right now. Some of them have 3 to 4 kids! Pregnancy announcements and baby pictures fill my Facebook feed. Sometimes I smile, with tears in my eyes. Sometimes I just have to close the laptop, the pain is too great. I mourn that I will never experience "the greatest of all loves". I mourn that I will never see my husband's happy face when I tell him I'm pregnant. I mourn that I will never see that grin when his children take their first steps. Say their first word. I mourn that I am selfish and I worry about who will take care of me when I'm old.
I mourn for the girl who only felt hate and anger. I mourn for the people she hurt when she was younger, and didn't know any better.
I mourn for the girl who saw forgiveness as weak.
I mourn for the teenager who could never let go.
I mourn for the girl who spent half her teen years and all of her 20's numbing herself with alcohol, painkillers, and benzo's, with absolutely no inkling of "why?".
I mourn all of this. And then I try to let it go.
This is life, take it or leave it. I could sit here all day with the "what if's?" and the "who knows?". Everything that has come to pass, I cannot change. I can only try to accept it.
After all, it's made me who I am today.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Dear Diary
Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in a while.
I went down into our basement, and into the boxes of my childhood stuff I've kept over the years. I went down there looking for a journal. It was a specific purple spiral notebook, one I'd filled with quotes from poems and songs, and a few fiction stories I wrote in high school. I was looking for some inspiration for writing. As soon as I opened the first box, I felt a slight twinge that said this might be a mistake. There were so many pictures from high school in that box. Pictures of a young, smiling, goofy teenager. One who was so good at hiding the pain. Too good. There were stuffed animals, candles, dance awards, and trophies. I lovingly, delicately ran my fingers over the spine of a white teddy bear. I picked up the bear, and there it was. My childhood diary. Thoughts and events from my life from the time I was in 6th grade till I was a sophomore in high school. Maybe I thought the purple journal would be in that big, black binder that was my diary, but nevertheless, I grabbed it and brought it upstairs.
I set the somewhat-crumbling binder down on the kitchen counter, and opened it. There was a clump of small pieces of paper tucked in the front cover. I smiled when I found $5 in McDonald's gift certificates, circa 1997, and a $10 Applebees gift certificate from my high school best friend. 'No expiration date' it claimed on the front. I imagined taking that certificate to the Applebees in my hometown during my next visit, just to see if they would take it. Nestled behind those certificates was a letter with my name on it. My dad's handwriting. It was an apology he had wrote me after "The Toilet Paper Incident". I was crying by the time I got to the end of letter and the words that moved me the most. At the end he had wrote,
"I'm going through a confusing time right now; something I don't understand, but am determined to resolve no matter what. I know it's tearing our family apart right now, but my hope is that it's temporary, and will lead to me becoming a better, more centered person. I have to do this because I don't see any other way right now. If I discover what's going on with me, I'll be home that day, that hour, that minute, but until then I have to keep searching."
That paragraph hit me hard. I didn't understand the letter when I received it, how could I? After all, I was only 17. It sure means a lot now, though. I completely understand what he went through, because that's what I'm going through. Complete and total personal upheaval. The only difference is I don't have a family that I'm responsible for. I honestly believe that that makes my journey 100% easier than whatever my dad went through. Another thing was made clear by this letter- "the toilet paper incident" occurred when my parents were separated, not when I was in middle school being chased home from the bus. Memory is a tricky thing, isn't it? I'm trying not to beat myself up over not remembering something perfectly, I spend way too much time doing that as it it. And that in itself can cause more pain. More on that another time, though.
I wiped away tears with the back of my hand, and settled in to read the actual diary. The first thing that struck me, that always strikes me on reading that diary, is how much pain is inferred through the passages. The main reoccurring theme throughout the first handful of pages is how unhappy I am. I hate school, my friends don't like me and talk about me behind my back, and I am angry. Lots of scrawling, hateful epithets written in all capital letters. Lots of anger with my mom, and with my brother. The second thing that knocked the wind out of me was a passage written on 12-16-95. It was regarding an incident that was one of the first traumatic memories to boil over in EMDR. My mom was taking me to my first concert that day, a Reba McEntire concert in Portland, OR. On our way, my mom and I saw a German Shepherd get hit by a car. In the entry, I described the scene exactly how it's been burned into my brain since that day. That memory used to cause so much distress, pain, and depression, and it struck me how much that has changed since EMDR. Recalling that memory yesterday was a good way to evaluate that that memory still feels less disturbing since the onset of EMDR. Even though it's been almost a year since we reprocessed that memory. Which is the purpose of EMDR, so that's very positive. Another important issue regarding this memory was that I never remembered the date. I never remembered it was around the holidays. December is, by far, my worst month. I spend the entire month in a funk, every year. I always thought it was just because of the holidays, the pressure, my birthday... Now I'm wondering if this traumatic memory is also involved a bit in my holiday madness?
Another thing became transparent to me upon reading the diary. I've quite clearly had dysfunctional relationships with the opposite sex since the beginning. It was interesting to read about the onset of my first relationship and all the flawed thinking I've always displayed. I saw how elated I was when the relationship became physical, when I was 13. I saw how unstable in the relationship I was- always complaining about how he was obsessed with me and way too nice, so I ended the relationship. At which time, I became panicked and all I could write about was getting him back. And I did get him back. And the relationship became more physical. I noted that I didn't include in my diary that I lost my viriginity to him. I remember my mindset at that age. It was always in the back of my mind that my mom could find my diary, so I never included that. Reading through the entries though, I knew where it had happened.
The on-again/off-again relationship came to its inevitable end. And I wrote about the loss for no less than 1 year, truly fixated and unable to move on. I was in eighth grade. What 13-year old mourns the loss of a boyfriend for a year? I wrote that I felt like I'd lost a best friend, that I missed the closeness, that I felt lost. Empty. Alone.
And then, one year later, I met someone else. And the exact same process started over. Except this time, there were a few more detailed entries to go off of. This time, the boy I was dating went to a different school so I only saw him on the weekends. It was obvious, from reading the entires, that I was ok with the relationship when we were together (fooling around, being touched, etc.) but during our time apart, I got squirrely. I would start to doubt the relationship and how much he cared for me. I would think about breaking up with him, but then if we did break up, he would be all I would think about. And yes, this relationship became on-again/off-again too.
It was obvious. Written in front of me, in black and white. Only, I'd never seen it before. In my young brain, things were only balanced in these "relationships" when they were physical. Sex= Love. That's where I felt right. That's where I felt safe. And let's face it- when you are 13, you don't get a whole lot of time to do these things. So, I spent most of my relationships feeling depressed. Like things were wrong. Like I wasn't good enough.
And how does a young girl come right out of the gate, and behave this way?
The answer is plain and straight-forward- programming. I was taught to think this way, yet I had no inkling of what had happened to me as a child. Not one thought, not one time. Ever. I never thought, "Maybe I'm this way because something happened to me?". I remember how I felt at the time-
Born broken. I would be forever broken. Possibly just bad genetics. Possibly I was just a terrible person.
These revelations have put a lot into perspective. I realize now why my college relationship was so difficult, and why so many other relationships were. I (subconsciously) became paranoid over my relationships if they weren't physical. And during college, I was on Depo-Provera and had zero sex-drive. With the lack of physical closeness, I became even nuttier. More paranoid. Needy. And no successful relationship exists in harmony with that much negative emotion. I was more unlike myself than I've ever been during that relationship.
It's clear to me now why I feel my marriage is in trouble if we haven't had sex in a couple of days.
And while these things are evident to me, now I'm left wondering,
"How do I change this?" How do I break the association of love and sex? As A has mentioned many times, we are only getting older. Both of our sex drives will naturally decrease, and am I going to be thinking he doesn't love me for larger and larger amount of times?
I don't want this to be the case.
I went down into our basement, and into the boxes of my childhood stuff I've kept over the years. I went down there looking for a journal. It was a specific purple spiral notebook, one I'd filled with quotes from poems and songs, and a few fiction stories I wrote in high school. I was looking for some inspiration for writing. As soon as I opened the first box, I felt a slight twinge that said this might be a mistake. There were so many pictures from high school in that box. Pictures of a young, smiling, goofy teenager. One who was so good at hiding the pain. Too good. There were stuffed animals, candles, dance awards, and trophies. I lovingly, delicately ran my fingers over the spine of a white teddy bear. I picked up the bear, and there it was. My childhood diary. Thoughts and events from my life from the time I was in 6th grade till I was a sophomore in high school. Maybe I thought the purple journal would be in that big, black binder that was my diary, but nevertheless, I grabbed it and brought it upstairs.
I set the somewhat-crumbling binder down on the kitchen counter, and opened it. There was a clump of small pieces of paper tucked in the front cover. I smiled when I found $5 in McDonald's gift certificates, circa 1997, and a $10 Applebees gift certificate from my high school best friend. 'No expiration date' it claimed on the front. I imagined taking that certificate to the Applebees in my hometown during my next visit, just to see if they would take it. Nestled behind those certificates was a letter with my name on it. My dad's handwriting. It was an apology he had wrote me after "The Toilet Paper Incident". I was crying by the time I got to the end of letter and the words that moved me the most. At the end he had wrote,
"I'm going through a confusing time right now; something I don't understand, but am determined to resolve no matter what. I know it's tearing our family apart right now, but my hope is that it's temporary, and will lead to me becoming a better, more centered person. I have to do this because I don't see any other way right now. If I discover what's going on with me, I'll be home that day, that hour, that minute, but until then I have to keep searching."
That paragraph hit me hard. I didn't understand the letter when I received it, how could I? After all, I was only 17. It sure means a lot now, though. I completely understand what he went through, because that's what I'm going through. Complete and total personal upheaval. The only difference is I don't have a family that I'm responsible for. I honestly believe that that makes my journey 100% easier than whatever my dad went through. Another thing was made clear by this letter- "the toilet paper incident" occurred when my parents were separated, not when I was in middle school being chased home from the bus. Memory is a tricky thing, isn't it? I'm trying not to beat myself up over not remembering something perfectly, I spend way too much time doing that as it it. And that in itself can cause more pain. More on that another time, though.
I wiped away tears with the back of my hand, and settled in to read the actual diary. The first thing that struck me, that always strikes me on reading that diary, is how much pain is inferred through the passages. The main reoccurring theme throughout the first handful of pages is how unhappy I am. I hate school, my friends don't like me and talk about me behind my back, and I am angry. Lots of scrawling, hateful epithets written in all capital letters. Lots of anger with my mom, and with my brother. The second thing that knocked the wind out of me was a passage written on 12-16-95. It was regarding an incident that was one of the first traumatic memories to boil over in EMDR. My mom was taking me to my first concert that day, a Reba McEntire concert in Portland, OR. On our way, my mom and I saw a German Shepherd get hit by a car. In the entry, I described the scene exactly how it's been burned into my brain since that day. That memory used to cause so much distress, pain, and depression, and it struck me how much that has changed since EMDR. Recalling that memory yesterday was a good way to evaluate that that memory still feels less disturbing since the onset of EMDR. Even though it's been almost a year since we reprocessed that memory. Which is the purpose of EMDR, so that's very positive. Another important issue regarding this memory was that I never remembered the date. I never remembered it was around the holidays. December is, by far, my worst month. I spend the entire month in a funk, every year. I always thought it was just because of the holidays, the pressure, my birthday... Now I'm wondering if this traumatic memory is also involved a bit in my holiday madness?
Another thing became transparent to me upon reading the diary. I've quite clearly had dysfunctional relationships with the opposite sex since the beginning. It was interesting to read about the onset of my first relationship and all the flawed thinking I've always displayed. I saw how elated I was when the relationship became physical, when I was 13. I saw how unstable in the relationship I was- always complaining about how he was obsessed with me and way too nice, so I ended the relationship. At which time, I became panicked and all I could write about was getting him back. And I did get him back. And the relationship became more physical. I noted that I didn't include in my diary that I lost my viriginity to him. I remember my mindset at that age. It was always in the back of my mind that my mom could find my diary, so I never included that. Reading through the entries though, I knew where it had happened.
The on-again/off-again relationship came to its inevitable end. And I wrote about the loss for no less than 1 year, truly fixated and unable to move on. I was in eighth grade. What 13-year old mourns the loss of a boyfriend for a year? I wrote that I felt like I'd lost a best friend, that I missed the closeness, that I felt lost. Empty. Alone.
And then, one year later, I met someone else. And the exact same process started over. Except this time, there were a few more detailed entries to go off of. This time, the boy I was dating went to a different school so I only saw him on the weekends. It was obvious, from reading the entires, that I was ok with the relationship when we were together (fooling around, being touched, etc.) but during our time apart, I got squirrely. I would start to doubt the relationship and how much he cared for me. I would think about breaking up with him, but then if we did break up, he would be all I would think about. And yes, this relationship became on-again/off-again too.
It was obvious. Written in front of me, in black and white. Only, I'd never seen it before. In my young brain, things were only balanced in these "relationships" when they were physical. Sex= Love. That's where I felt right. That's where I felt safe. And let's face it- when you are 13, you don't get a whole lot of time to do these things. So, I spent most of my relationships feeling depressed. Like things were wrong. Like I wasn't good enough.
And how does a young girl come right out of the gate, and behave this way?
The answer is plain and straight-forward- programming. I was taught to think this way, yet I had no inkling of what had happened to me as a child. Not one thought, not one time. Ever. I never thought, "Maybe I'm this way because something happened to me?". I remember how I felt at the time-
Born broken. I would be forever broken. Possibly just bad genetics. Possibly I was just a terrible person.
These revelations have put a lot into perspective. I realize now why my college relationship was so difficult, and why so many other relationships were. I (subconsciously) became paranoid over my relationships if they weren't physical. And during college, I was on Depo-Provera and had zero sex-drive. With the lack of physical closeness, I became even nuttier. More paranoid. Needy. And no successful relationship exists in harmony with that much negative emotion. I was more unlike myself than I've ever been during that relationship.
It's clear to me now why I feel my marriage is in trouble if we haven't had sex in a couple of days.
And while these things are evident to me, now I'm left wondering,
"How do I change this?" How do I break the association of love and sex? As A has mentioned many times, we are only getting older. Both of our sex drives will naturally decrease, and am I going to be thinking he doesn't love me for larger and larger amount of times?
I don't want this to be the case.
Monday, May 25, 2015
What is EMDR?
What exactly is EMDR?
EMDR is a relatively new therapy developed in 1988 by Francine Shapiro. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing. Here are a couple of links in case you want to check it out:
EMDR Institute (this website was touted by my therapist as the only website I should check out on EMDR. I just don't work that way, but it is a good resource).
EMDR- Wiki (Sorry, but I love me some Wiki)
My PTSD (Be careful with this website. It's a community forum, so you may read some triggering information on this site. I searched EMDR and read other people's experiences with the therapy. I suspect the therapy might be different for everyone because some people had experiences that I definitely did not have. So, as I said above, be careful. Read with an open mind and take everything with a grain of salt. Just because someone had a bad experience does not mean you automatically will too).
To be completely un-technical, EMDR is basically a therapy where you think about a disturbing memory while the left and right sides of your brain are stimulated continuously, one after the other, for a short amount of time. Most people report their memories being less disturbing after their brain is stimulated in this fashion. The theory is that emotional disturbance is caused by unprocessed memories. After a session of EMDR, memories associated with the disturbing memory may have come up for processing. My therapist explained it to me this way, in layman's terms:
Say your brain is like a filing cabinet. Some people are able to accept a memory and file it in the correct spot immediately, resulting in an orderly cabinet all the time. Other brains may look like a tornado went through. Papers scattered everywhere. Furniture tipped over, files spilling out. Dust flying up the air, waiting to settle. EMDR helps put the furniture back up right. Picks up those pieces of paper off the floor, and begins to put them in the correct alphabetical order within the files. Runs a duster over the entire room.
In that fashion, there can be lots of memories scattered about that someone is not even aware are out of their files. That's how the whole process has felt for me. I wish I'd written down my very first experience in session, but that was over a year ago. So I thought I'd share my experience from my last session, which was a couple of days ago-
*********Trigger Warnings: Emotional Abuse, Animal (Dog,Cat) Pain**********
Sessions always start with me and my therapist sitting down as she asks me how my week went. If anything disturbing happened, we hash that out. For example, a couple of weeks ago I found out that my mother has to have a double mastectomy, my brother may have congenital degenerative heart failure, and one of my absolute best couple friends is getting a divorce. I learned all this news in 2 days. Needless to say, we spent that session just talking. However, if I'm feeling good, we move along. A year ago, I chose "tappers" as my brain stimulation. Meaning, I hold little vibrating handles. EMDR can also be done with light instead of vibration. So, she hands me the tappers and asks me to begin some deep breathing. To relax. She then brings up whatever memory we are working on that day.
That day, we were working on a memory from when I was teenager. It was a day when I'd been chased home from the school bus by the neighbor kids. I was carrying my tenor saxophone case and in an absolute panic because it was so hard to run with that case. When I made it home and collapsed in the arm chair in the living room, my father appeared from the bathroom. Apparently, someone had used the last of the toilet paper and not changed the roll. My father, face red and angry, asked if I had done it. I honestly didn't know, but I shrugged. Most likely, disrespectfully. With his face even redder, he threw the empty cardboard tube at me and told me I was a selfish little bitch and a horrible person.
We start the EMDR session by me picturing this. My therapist always tells me to just observe the thoughts or memories that flow from here. Like watching scenery from a train. I'm not supposed to actively think, I just observe what comes next. As I was sitting there, eyes closed, remembering this event, my therapist starts the tapper.
Most of the time, memories just flow one into the other. Sometimes, I just sit there and my brain remembers the event in detail. Or my brain focuses on the anxiety of my stomach. This session was pretty normal though, and the memories began to flow. Straight from the memory of my dad throwing the tube at me, a flood wall gave out. Memories came seeping out very fast, seconds of events that slid into seconds of different events. These memories were all related to my college boyfriend. I saw the night we broke up, except I only saw me with tears streaming down my face, standing outside the University library in the rain. Then I saw a night at his house when he told me we'd never get back together right after we'd been intimate. This flashed to the memory of coming up behind his mom at one of his baseball games, only to hear her talking to her friend about her son's "trashy" girlfriend. To taking photos for one of his photography classes where he had to take pictures of a person, and he told me while I was posing that I looked hideous and couldn't I at least try to be pretty? Driving in his convertible to a 4th of July party as he's arguing with me about how much weight I've gained. Seeing him at a party, making out with one of my sorority sisters. Pushing me at a beach party. Telling me his friends hated me. Telling me that no one would ever love me because I was disgusting. When I say the memories flash, I mean flash. There was literally 1 second of each memory, and there were a lot more memories. By the time my therapist stopped the tappers to regroup, I was overwhelmed.
My therapist and I have concluded (long before this) that this college relationship was pretty traumatic. Memories from this relationship pop up repeatedly. As soon as I think I've "filed" all the memories, more come gushing out. I get frustrated but my therapist reminds me I'm trying to file an entire lifetime of memories that may not have been filed correctly. I've only been doing this a year in contrast to the 30+ years of memories I'm trying to muddle through.
After we regroup, we repeat the process usually 2-3 more times. We regroup every time and discuss the issues that arise. We always end with me focusing on my stomach because it's almost always anxious. By doing this technique, I'm usually able to quell the anxiety before I exit her office. I am always exhausted by this process. I tend to go home, collapse, and be completely useless the rest of the day. I don't cook, I don't clean, I can barely take my dogs outside. Depending on the severity of the session, the next day is usually exhaustive as well. I seem to come out of the fog on day 2, and unless it's PMS-time of the month, I feel good until I go back to her office.
It's hard work. But I'm feeling better than I have ever remembered feeling. Things that used to be impossible don't feel the same way to my body anymore. In the past, if I saw a dead dog or cat or even a bunny on the side of the road, I could be emotionally wiped for the rest of the day. The image would be burned in my brain. The image would flash up periodically throughout the day, tears pricking my eyes every time, the intrusive thoughts always picturing the poor animal gasping for its last breath. Completely alone. The thoughts that accompanied these experiences were always the same-
"There is so much pain in the world. So much pain it will never end."
"I cannot keep doing this. I cannot live the rest of my life feeling this way."
"We are doomed. We've destroyed our planet, each other, we hurt everything. What is the point?"
"I do not want to live. I can't do this anymore."
Anyone that is depressed can tell you how nearly impossible it is the live with these thoughts. How heavy and slow your body feels. How dragging a breath into your weary body feels like a 100-lb weight slowly bearing down on your chest. How even looking around the world feels murky and oppressive. However, I've been undergoing EMDR for over a year and I can readily tell you that those thoughts have been significantly reduced. I still get them occasionally, but my life isn't ruled by them any longer. I have also come to completely realize what people mean when they say, "Everything will be ok". I've heard these words my entire life, but they never developed one iota of comprehension until recently. The calm that comes with feeling rather than hearing that statement is truly something that every person can only understand for themselves once they've finally achieved it.
Some people recover repressed memories through EMDR. This has not happened to me. Every single memory that has come during EMDR is one I actively remember. My recovery of repressed memories has strictly come out of session. The reason I mention this is because my therapist and I did CBT for 1 year before we started the EMDR. My therapist wanted to make sure I had the tools to cope with whatever memories may come. Say what you want about CBT, but I'm a believer. The brain is a powerful instrument that we don't fully understand, but I believe there is something to be said for trying to change the way your brain works. A lot of the techniques I've learned from CBT work tremendously, diffusion being one of the most effective for me. In fact, when I had my latest flashback, I was able to diffuse almost immediately. Progress!
Feel free to email me with any questions you may have on EMDR. Please be aware that I am not a psychologist or therapist, I'm strictly a patient who can level with you on personal experience. As I mentioned above, I really do think everyone is different. My experience may not be your experience.
Till next time!
EMDR is a relatively new therapy developed in 1988 by Francine Shapiro. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing. Here are a couple of links in case you want to check it out:
EMDR Institute (this website was touted by my therapist as the only website I should check out on EMDR. I just don't work that way, but it is a good resource).
EMDR- Wiki (Sorry, but I love me some Wiki)
My PTSD (Be careful with this website. It's a community forum, so you may read some triggering information on this site. I searched EMDR and read other people's experiences with the therapy. I suspect the therapy might be different for everyone because some people had experiences that I definitely did not have. So, as I said above, be careful. Read with an open mind and take everything with a grain of salt. Just because someone had a bad experience does not mean you automatically will too).
To be completely un-technical, EMDR is basically a therapy where you think about a disturbing memory while the left and right sides of your brain are stimulated continuously, one after the other, for a short amount of time. Most people report their memories being less disturbing after their brain is stimulated in this fashion. The theory is that emotional disturbance is caused by unprocessed memories. After a session of EMDR, memories associated with the disturbing memory may have come up for processing. My therapist explained it to me this way, in layman's terms:
Say your brain is like a filing cabinet. Some people are able to accept a memory and file it in the correct spot immediately, resulting in an orderly cabinet all the time. Other brains may look like a tornado went through. Papers scattered everywhere. Furniture tipped over, files spilling out. Dust flying up the air, waiting to settle. EMDR helps put the furniture back up right. Picks up those pieces of paper off the floor, and begins to put them in the correct alphabetical order within the files. Runs a duster over the entire room.
In that fashion, there can be lots of memories scattered about that someone is not even aware are out of their files. That's how the whole process has felt for me. I wish I'd written down my very first experience in session, but that was over a year ago. So I thought I'd share my experience from my last session, which was a couple of days ago-
*********Trigger Warnings: Emotional Abuse, Animal (Dog,Cat) Pain**********
Sessions always start with me and my therapist sitting down as she asks me how my week went. If anything disturbing happened, we hash that out. For example, a couple of weeks ago I found out that my mother has to have a double mastectomy, my brother may have congenital degenerative heart failure, and one of my absolute best couple friends is getting a divorce. I learned all this news in 2 days. Needless to say, we spent that session just talking. However, if I'm feeling good, we move along. A year ago, I chose "tappers" as my brain stimulation. Meaning, I hold little vibrating handles. EMDR can also be done with light instead of vibration. So, she hands me the tappers and asks me to begin some deep breathing. To relax. She then brings up whatever memory we are working on that day.
That day, we were working on a memory from when I was teenager. It was a day when I'd been chased home from the school bus by the neighbor kids. I was carrying my tenor saxophone case and in an absolute panic because it was so hard to run with that case. When I made it home and collapsed in the arm chair in the living room, my father appeared from the bathroom. Apparently, someone had used the last of the toilet paper and not changed the roll. My father, face red and angry, asked if I had done it. I honestly didn't know, but I shrugged. Most likely, disrespectfully. With his face even redder, he threw the empty cardboard tube at me and told me I was a selfish little bitch and a horrible person.
We start the EMDR session by me picturing this. My therapist always tells me to just observe the thoughts or memories that flow from here. Like watching scenery from a train. I'm not supposed to actively think, I just observe what comes next. As I was sitting there, eyes closed, remembering this event, my therapist starts the tapper.
Most of the time, memories just flow one into the other. Sometimes, I just sit there and my brain remembers the event in detail. Or my brain focuses on the anxiety of my stomach. This session was pretty normal though, and the memories began to flow. Straight from the memory of my dad throwing the tube at me, a flood wall gave out. Memories came seeping out very fast, seconds of events that slid into seconds of different events. These memories were all related to my college boyfriend. I saw the night we broke up, except I only saw me with tears streaming down my face, standing outside the University library in the rain. Then I saw a night at his house when he told me we'd never get back together right after we'd been intimate. This flashed to the memory of coming up behind his mom at one of his baseball games, only to hear her talking to her friend about her son's "trashy" girlfriend. To taking photos for one of his photography classes where he had to take pictures of a person, and he told me while I was posing that I looked hideous and couldn't I at least try to be pretty? Driving in his convertible to a 4th of July party as he's arguing with me about how much weight I've gained. Seeing him at a party, making out with one of my sorority sisters. Pushing me at a beach party. Telling me his friends hated me. Telling me that no one would ever love me because I was disgusting. When I say the memories flash, I mean flash. There was literally 1 second of each memory, and there were a lot more memories. By the time my therapist stopped the tappers to regroup, I was overwhelmed.
My therapist and I have concluded (long before this) that this college relationship was pretty traumatic. Memories from this relationship pop up repeatedly. As soon as I think I've "filed" all the memories, more come gushing out. I get frustrated but my therapist reminds me I'm trying to file an entire lifetime of memories that may not have been filed correctly. I've only been doing this a year in contrast to the 30+ years of memories I'm trying to muddle through.
After we regroup, we repeat the process usually 2-3 more times. We regroup every time and discuss the issues that arise. We always end with me focusing on my stomach because it's almost always anxious. By doing this technique, I'm usually able to quell the anxiety before I exit her office. I am always exhausted by this process. I tend to go home, collapse, and be completely useless the rest of the day. I don't cook, I don't clean, I can barely take my dogs outside. Depending on the severity of the session, the next day is usually exhaustive as well. I seem to come out of the fog on day 2, and unless it's PMS-time of the month, I feel good until I go back to her office.
It's hard work. But I'm feeling better than I have ever remembered feeling. Things that used to be impossible don't feel the same way to my body anymore. In the past, if I saw a dead dog or cat or even a bunny on the side of the road, I could be emotionally wiped for the rest of the day. The image would be burned in my brain. The image would flash up periodically throughout the day, tears pricking my eyes every time, the intrusive thoughts always picturing the poor animal gasping for its last breath. Completely alone. The thoughts that accompanied these experiences were always the same-
"There is so much pain in the world. So much pain it will never end."
"I cannot keep doing this. I cannot live the rest of my life feeling this way."
"We are doomed. We've destroyed our planet, each other, we hurt everything. What is the point?"
"I do not want to live. I can't do this anymore."
Anyone that is depressed can tell you how nearly impossible it is the live with these thoughts. How heavy and slow your body feels. How dragging a breath into your weary body feels like a 100-lb weight slowly bearing down on your chest. How even looking around the world feels murky and oppressive. However, I've been undergoing EMDR for over a year and I can readily tell you that those thoughts have been significantly reduced. I still get them occasionally, but my life isn't ruled by them any longer. I have also come to completely realize what people mean when they say, "Everything will be ok". I've heard these words my entire life, but they never developed one iota of comprehension until recently. The calm that comes with feeling rather than hearing that statement is truly something that every person can only understand for themselves once they've finally achieved it.
Some people recover repressed memories through EMDR. This has not happened to me. Every single memory that has come during EMDR is one I actively remember. My recovery of repressed memories has strictly come out of session. The reason I mention this is because my therapist and I did CBT for 1 year before we started the EMDR. My therapist wanted to make sure I had the tools to cope with whatever memories may come. Say what you want about CBT, but I'm a believer. The brain is a powerful instrument that we don't fully understand, but I believe there is something to be said for trying to change the way your brain works. A lot of the techniques I've learned from CBT work tremendously, diffusion being one of the most effective for me. In fact, when I had my latest flashback, I was able to diffuse almost immediately. Progress!
Feel free to email me with any questions you may have on EMDR. Please be aware that I am not a psychologist or therapist, I'm strictly a patient who can level with you on personal experience. As I mentioned above, I really do think everyone is different. My experience may not be your experience.
Till next time!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)