EMDR

In my first EMDR session, I learned that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Not that I didn’t know. That I still don’t.

It’s not a terrible place to be, because I like to learn. Also, the less I know, the less I’m afraid I’m forcing things to happen. It felt a bit that way, anyway. I’m tap-tap-tapping, letting my mind do its thing, and when it stalls, I try to make it move. I want to get something out of this, and going blank feels unproductive.

How can I reprocess a memory if no memory comes to me?

The process felt a bit like playing with an Ouija board. (Yes, I did that when I was a kid. No, my Baptist preacher father wouldn’t approve.) Looking back, I know someone was moving the triangle thingy, and I’m pretty sure I know who it was. Sometimes it was me. It was funny, and I’m not sorry.

But grownup Rach tried very hard not to force anything during therapy.

The sessions went like this:

  1. Install a safe place
  2. Choose a memory to reprocess
  3. Reprocess chosen memory

Last time I blogged, I thought I would be going from session 1 to session 3, so that’s why it’s been two weeks instead of one since I shared anything. And actually, we didn’t even do the memory we said we were going to at session 2. He started me on a lower anxiety one, a memory I’ve told many times and thought was just a funny (though scary) thing that happened to me once.

The Bull

This memory popped up unexpectedly, and though I always laugh when I tell it, it made me cry during the session. Could be my hormones–they make me cry over everything–but I got stuck pretty hard. And that’s kinda the point.

Remembering it made me feel stuck. Constricted throat, heart pounding, frozen with fear.

When I was around 7 years old, I was staying with my Sunday school teacher at her house in the country. She had a bull. I saw her go in its pen to feed it and decided it must be tame since it didn’t charge her. We had bulls at our house, too. We rode them, didn’t fear them.

This bull didn’t know me and didn’t want me in its pen. It lowered its head and thundered toward me. I had only just stepped inside, and it had a long way to run. I could have stepped out and closed the gate, but instead, I just stood there. Stuck. Frozen with fear.

Reprocessing

We started with the way I felt as the bull charged me, and then my mind took over. This is where I get iffy. Am I correlating things on purpose, or is my brain working on my behalf? What’s the difference? My therapist said not to resist, so I tried to let it happen. And it went all over the place.

Laughing memories, terrified memories, stuff I can’t explain, and stuff I can. I get why my mind jumped to a time when I was in college. A guy bullied me, and my roommate stood up for me. (Thanks, Meg!) Then she told me I needed to learn to stand up for myself.

Next I jumped to a time when I was very young, toes curled around the end of a high board, too scared to dive. Then I was at my desk, scared to hit publish. Then with my brother, fleeing an angry turtle. (Did you know they can hiss?) He threw a rock on its back and cracked its shell, because I was too stupid to back away from it. From a turtle!

I revisited a trauma that occurred when I was 18, when freezing took something from me I can never get back.

Then I jumped to a fun game my brother and I played on rainy days. Reading books by flashlight under a mattress tilted against the wall. No idea how or if that correlates.

Finally, I went back to the original memory, where we assigned it a negative idea I believe about myself. By we, I mean me. I chose the phrase that correctly expressed my thoughts in that moment. When applied to all the other memories, especially the one when I was 18, it shattered me. And it felt utterly true.

I Can’t Protect Myself

This surprised me. Not so much that I felt that way as the bull charged me, though I could have protected myself simply by stepping out of the pen. It makes sense to feel helpless when you’re 35 pounds, too scared to move, about to be speared or launched by a raging hunk of beef.

But that it’s affecting me today? That it’s not just a funny memory I tell to explain to people that I’ve never handled fear appropriately. I’m a freezer. I get stuck. And apparently, I have a core belief that I can’t protect myself. Anyone who knows me is unlikely to think I feel this way.

I’m a beast. Don’t mess with me, because I DO WHAT I WANT! I actually wrote I do what I want on my name tag at re:generation instead of my name. That’s how sure I was that I’m in control. I even drew a little crown on it.

But guess what I picked as my new message to myself. Tearfully, I might add.

I’m In Control Now

I can’t say for sure that I accomplished anything. We reprocessed the memory, changing “I can’t protect myself” to “I’m in control now.” I definitely felt different the last couple times we visited the memory. It makes me laugh to recall myself standing there like a dummy while murder came rushing toward me. But then, it always did. Hopefully, the tone of my laughter has changed.

My therapist said the processing will continue after the session, and he wasn’t wrong. Memories keep popping up, adding to the list of times I’ve frozen. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I don’t know yet if it’s helping me, but I definitely know more about myself than I did before starting EMDR.

Next week, we’ll tackle a new memory. I won’t even bother to predict how that’s going to go.

Radical Rest

Not a Napper

Someone commented to me several weeks ago that they’d never seen me do anything halfway. I assured them there were things, and when they asked for an example, one word came out.

“Rest.”

I do that halfway, if at all.

I’ve been working on myself, following themes that I believe come from God. Trust was a big one. Coming out of my cave, wanting to live again. Pride is ongoing. Pretty sure that one will be around until I die. But rest is the first one I’ve bucked at.

God told me to rest, and I had one question for Him.

“But what do I do while I rest?”

Spiritually, I might as well be five years old, drumming my heels on my kindergarten mat. Because I hate this. I don’t want to do it. I want to be busy. Thinking about resting makes my tummy tense up. Can’t breathe!

I have a new therapist, acquired in similar fashion to my previous one. Someone else’s doing. Because I’m not going to seek help. But if it’s thrown at me, I tend to allow it. So here we go, back into the swamp of my thoughts.

EMDR

We started EMDR last week. By started, I mean we installed my safe place. I already had one from doing a couple sessions with my previous therapist.

Granny’s Porch.

If you’ve read my book, Summer, According to Sam, then you’ve already visited Granny’s porch. It seemed to me like the perfect place to call safe, because I have only happy memories there. Sitting in her swing, shelling purple hulls, watching the sunrise while sipping my coffee flavored sugar-milk. Granny’s there, too, watering her plants from a re-purposed milk jug.

But after testing it out, my therapist said I needed a new safe place. Why? Because when he asked me how I felt on Granny’s porch, I gave him a non-restful answer.

“Eager.”

That’s how I feel. Not at peace. Itching for adventure. That sounded right to me, because eagerness sounds safe. Being still doesn’t.

I loved sitting with Granny, loved the peas and the coffee and the sounds of whip-poor-wills. But my feet can’t wait to hit the ground. I was supposed to be trying to stay on the porch, but every time he paused to ask what was going on in my head, I was somewhere else.

On my motorcycle, playing hide-and-seek in the woods. On the trails down to Lake Texoma. Busting rocks to find the ones with sparkles in them. Running, cartwheeling, climbing trees. Granny’s porch isn’t a safe place. It’s a launchpad.

The Boat

He asked me to choose a new safe place, one that didn’t propel me into adventure. I deflated, rebelling on the inside, but not telling him that, because even my therapist doesn’t get to see the really, really, really, real me.

I know me, though, how desperately I want to be anywhere but with myself. So I knew this had to be a place I couldn’t escape. I didn’t think my therapist would approve of a cell with no door, so I went the other way.

Unfathomable space.

The boat is simple, more like a raft, really. No motor, no oars … it can only drift. The sky is clear, the sun doesn’t hurt my eyes, and the water is so still it barely licks my floating platform. I can’t google anything, answer any texts, clean up any messes, learn a new craft. No one can ask me for anything. I can’t win or lose any games. Can’t entertain anyone. I just lie there on my back, not even imagining the next scene I’m going to write, because I can’t type it out anyway. Everything gets really quiet. I take a deep breath. And it comes out quivering.

Ahh, this is what rest feels like?

At first I tense up, because I need to swim ashore and do all the things. Someone needs to clean the kitchen. Make sure Phill eats, because he doesn’t take care of himself either. Wash Gabe’s karate uniform. Get Noah to work.

My terrariums aren’t gonna water themselves!

Actually, they do. That’s kinda the point. But I won’t let them, because I can’t leave the lid on. Gotta tweak, gotta replace a plant, gotta move a rock or a shell. I can’t rest. I can’t stop working, even when it’s all done and I’m just creating work for the sake of staying busy.

But on the boat I have to stop. There’s literally nothing I can do there. It’s not just rest. It’s radical rest. And I had no idea how much I hungered for it. When we test it out, I don’t leave the boat. I’m breathing differently there, and it feels so good, even the lure of adventure can’t budge me.

Tomorrow we’ll use my freshly installed safe place to start a journey. We’ll seek–and hopefully destroy–the voice that tells me I’m not good enough. The voice I’m trying to silence by staying busy. By publishing the best episodes, having the cleanest house, taming a terrarium so ferociously it might as well have plastic plants in it.

And after I confront that voice, I’ll rest.