Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
What now...?
Those were my exact words the first time I heard that this was the newest type of therapy I was going to be starting.
Quite frankly, it sounded complicated, weird, and too mechanical for my liking.
It turns out that I was exactly right. It was way too complicated for me to fully grasp at first, it's very strange and weird, and it's probably the most mechanical way of working through emotional distress in existence. And I'm not a mechanical person at all.
EMDR is used widely amongst therapists who specialize in the rehabilitation of post-traumatic stress disorder. It's actually not extremely common, but it has fantastic results in the cases that it is used.
My psychiatrist has been trying to get me to do it for years, but each time he mentioned it, I just brushed it off. Up until my hospitalization for 72 hours, I wasn't really open to going back to psychotherapy. For the majority of my high school career, I did the traditional emotional approach to working through emotional distress. Once a week, I went in, sat for an hour, talked about the emotions I had no idea how to identify, paid, and then left. I learned how to identify some of the emotions I was feeling. But I didn't feel like it had any structure, and I didn't feel like it helped me much. I wasn't about to go back and do it all over again. But part of my intensive outpatient therapy program was to connect with a therapy group. Group settings for therapy are not my thing in any way, shape, or form. They also require you to attend multiple sessions a week, something that would have been impossible for me considering I have Kaiser and I would have to drive over an hour away for each session. So I decided to just call some random lady that was on a list of therapists that Kaiser would cover in my area. I told her that I wanted structure; I needed some kind of treatment plan that was going to keep me on track. That's when she mentioned EMDR as her approach to my PTSD. She said when you deal with the trauma first, almost everything else will begin to improve.
Thus began the many hours of research and questions that I always have.
My psychiatrist explained to me that EMDR is a mechanical way of treating emotional distress, unlike the tradition approaches like what I did in high school. Studies have shown that EMDR therapy proves that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma in similar ways that the body heals from physical trauma. When you cut your finger cutting something up, your body works to naturally and properly close and heal the wound. If something gets inside and irritates the wound, it creates a block and slows down the recovery time, and can often times make the wound worse. Psychological trauma does just the same. When repeated traumatic events (in my case, they occurred within a short period of time - about 3 years) occur, it slows down the recovery time of the psychological wound. The brain's information processing system becomes blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a traumatic event. The emotional wound festers following the traumatic event, and can cause severe and intense suffering. Once whatever was blocking the system is removed, recovery resumes.
I know that still also sounds complicated. So here's what my new therapist explained to me.
Anything and everything that happens within your daily life is processed within both sides of the brain. When a traumatic event occurs, it is first processed within the right side of your brain because your right side of the brain controls and processes emotions. The problem, however, occurs when the right side of the brain freezes and doesn't communicate or process the traumatic even within the left side of the brain. When this occurs, the PTSD symptoms are then created as a way to cope with the trauma that the brain never fully processed. EMDR focuses on allowing the brain to once again communicate and process the trauma in the left side of the brain like it should have in the first place.
How?
That was my biggest question.
When EMDR was first created, therapists used an object and moved it back and forth between your eyes just like a pendulum. This stimulates the brain and allows the right and left side to communicate with each other. However, studies have shown that tapping stimulates the brain just the same, in a much less distracting way. My therapist uses tapping, so the tapping - for me - has become what the eye movement would have done.
The desensitization comes into play by exposing me to the past trauma, gradually.
Am I crazy? Everyone keeps asking me why in the world I would want to go back and visit my past traumas. They act like I don't constantly think about them each and every day. My trauma haunts me, literally. So going back and confronting them is scary, but it's not like it's completely out of the ordinary for me to do so considering they're always on my mind.
The reprocessing comes into play by my brain processing the traumatic event again, only properly this time.
This is where it gets weird.
On Monday, I sat in this very dim-lit room, with my eyes closed and a pair of headphones on, and my hands holding onto these two little objects, all of which were connected to this tiny little machine.
And I'm going to reprocess trauma how again..? What's a machine going to in order to help me reprocess all of this..?
The headphones created a sound in my ears that was a faint beeping sound. The sound was in rhythm with the buzzing that came through the two little things my hands held onto. The buzzing created what therapists refer to as tapping. Between the noise and the buzzing, my brain was stimulated and as a result of the stimulation, my right and left brain were forced to communicate with each other. My therapist coached me through everything. I didn't have to talk if I didn't want to go. But I was instructed to go back to one of the three traumatic events that has occurred, and reprocess it. She explained that reprocessing doesn't always mean going back and thinking about specific things related to the trauma. Sometimes, it's okay to use your imagination and process the event how I want to. Other times, it's okay to think about those specific things. However, if I'm going to, I have to use my imagination on how to put those behind me.
For example, many of you reading this know that I moved to Georgia in 2014 for stupid reasons. I was in a relationship with someone I never should have been with. My best friend, Emily, was in Europe at the time and kept asking me to come and visit her. He used to tell me constantly that it was never going to happen because we could never afford it. A year later, I was moved back home and on a flight to go see her because I worked hard to earn the money to do so, without him. The following year, I did it once again. Only that time, I got to experience multiple countries by train.
When I was instructed to go back and visit the traumatic event of me being with him as a whole, I got stuck on all of the other traumatic things that came along with it. The name calling, the comments of constantly putting me down instead of building me up, the occasional physical abuse, the severe emotional abuse, all of it came flooding back. It all hit me and I got extremely emotional. She stopped the machine for a moment and told me that I needed to come up with a way to send him off, send him away. I needed to send away all of the traumatic memories and thoughts that came along with it.
So I did. By picturing Europe by train.
I pictured myself getting on the train at my favorite train station somewhere in Austria, leaving him standing on the platform, and letting the doors close. He began to get farther and farther away and the farther I got, the more peace I felt. I was going to enjoy the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen, and leave him standing there with nothing and no one, just as he made me feel for so many months.
I know that sounds insane, but the imagination can do some incredible things. And I can't even begin to tell you how much empowerment I felt in imagining that. I can't even begin to tell you how much power I felt myself take back and use to my advantage at the end of it.
I'm still baffled at how in the world something like this can actually make a difference, but it has. For the first time in years, I have actually been able to challenge my thoughts. His voice is the voice I hear constantly. For months, I always heard how useless I was and how I could never do anything right. Within the last week, I have heard that voice more times than I could count, just as I always do. Except now, I feel ten times more empowered, and I've actually been able to tell him to shut up and leave me alone, which is what I should have done way back when. I have felt more confident than I ever have because for the first time, I am able to challenge what I heard him say.
This is only one of many sessions, and it's only one of three traumatic events that I must work through. But I am very pleased with the results of my first session, and I am very pleased with how I have been feeling since then.
If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text START to 741-741
Image credit: Unsplash
