Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013. Yesterday my therapist and I worked together with EMDR for almost an hour. She is very careful, and I appreciate her willingness to go slowly. After the horrible abreaction I had with my previous therapist, I am not about to rush the process! (See other essays under the topic heading "Therapy (EMDR)."
My target for this round of EMDR is the memory of the violent sexual abuse inflicted upon me by the neighbor woman when I was four years old. The main event took place in the neighbor's kitchen, and after that event, I never returned to the neighbor's house. What my therapist and I are doing is gradually leading up to the target event by dealing with my memories of the grooming previous to the event. So I visualized as best I could yesterday the living room of the woman's home and tried to remember what I could of my feelings surrounding the grooming.
Since this happened seventy years ago, I couldn't really remember what the living room looked like or what the woman looked like. All I could remember is how I felt and the sense that the living room was dimly lit and the woman had white/gray hair that, to my childish mind, looked like the hair of Medusa--I'd heard the story of how Perseus slew the Gorgon, Medusa, and the vision of Medusa's head with writhing snakes coming from it stayed stuck in my head. So what I remembered of the woman is that she had hair like Medusa, complete with writhing snakes.
Now, why would any child want to visit a neighbor who had hair that looked like Medusa? I was just four years old, and the woman always seemed glad to see me. She sat on the couch with me and paid attention to me--attention that I did not get at home. My mother usually put me out after breakfast if it wasn't raining, and I roamed the neighborhood for lack of anything else to do. I knocked on doors and visited any neighbor who would let me in for a while. The last neighbor I visited was always the woman next door.
Each time I knocked on the woman's door, I hoped that she would not put her hands where she wasn't supposed to put them. In my child mind, I knew that what she was doing was "bad" and that I was a "bad" girl for letting her do that. I wanted to run out of her house each time she did it, but I was too scared to run. I froze, instead.
All my life, I've blamed myself and have judged myself as "bad" for returning to visit that neighbor woman time after time and for not running away from her when she molested me. Yesterday, though, during my EMDR session, the thought that came to my mind was the thought or memory of being too scared to run, of freezing. When I thought about that yesterday, I realized that I was just a normal little girl, not a bad little girl. And I also remembered the hope, the thought that "maybe this time she won't do that," meaning that I hoped she wouldn't touch me where she should not have touched me. Because I hoped she would not touch me, that this time would be different from the other times, I accepted her invitation to enter her home. Then, when she did touch me where she should not have touched me, I was too scared of her to move or to run out the door. I froze. When I realized those two things yesterday, I felt relieved, like a falsely accused person on trial for some horrible crime must feel when he or she is declared "innocent on all counts."
The above, then, is the most important result from yesterday's EMDR session. Now, a day later, I can tell that my brain is processing all this, still. My session yesterday was 90 minutes long, and I had about 30 minutes to gather myself before heading into the real world and catching my bus for home. It took me a while to recover, but I was fine when I left my therapist's office. Since my session, I know my brain has been busy processing, and that is normal.
Since my session on Monday, I've noticed a few changes that may be related to the treatment--1. I was very tired Monday night. I've read on various web sites that this is normal. It stands to reason that when the brain is working so hard to process the experience, it uses a lot of energy, and being tired is a natural result. 2. I had a higher-than-usual craving for sweets, glucose. Since the brain uses a lot of glucose, anyway, it seems normal that when the brain is working extra hard, it would need extra glucose. I'll try to figure out how to satisfy this need without pigging out on sweets, however. 3. There are short periods of time when I don't seem to have many thoughts floating around in my head. This is unusual for me, but I chalk it up to my brain being busy with changes. Sort of like a computer freezing when too many activities are taking too much memory. 4. Although I can't be specific, I feel a tiny general feeling of increased sense of well-being. Maybe this is because I believe that EMDR works. Who knows? We'll see how this goes as time passes.
Since I have C-PTSD, I foresee a long time span for EMDR treatments, but maybe I'm wrong. I've had a lot of surprises in my life, so I'm not predicting anything. If I were working with EMDR for a one-time event and had non-complex PTSD, I would expect to improve dramatically in a few months. Since my trauma history has spread over more than half my lifetime, I don't expect a quick cure! However, the Ego State Therapy work I have done in the past three years has paved the way and has brought improvement, especially in symptom reduction, so I'll just keep on truckin' with the EMDR and see what happens. Right now, I'd say that I'm on the best path possible as I work toward increased healing.
In conclusion, please consider the following words of Scotland's Robert Burns:
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
For those of us who have been touched by "man's inhumanity to man," there is hope for healing. With all the present knowledge of brain science and new therapeutic techniques to help those of us who suffer from C-PTSD, if you suffer from this disorder and its life-sapping symptoms, you owe it to yourself to get the best available help possible! You can heal C-PTSD!
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