First EMDR Processing Session, “Birth” of an Other & Update

So, long time, no write. Yeah, it’s been busy for me working, planning out my life, therapy, life drama, etc.  I’m looking through my drafts box here and WHOA! There are several things I’m not sure I posted but look like I should have.  I’ll have to sort that out some other time though.  I have another post I started on my damn phone lol and I need to finish but I’m in such a different place now it’s hard to finish my thoughts on that subject again.

What I really came here to do was to share my first EMDR processing session a little bit.  I don’t want to go into it too much because it’s just too fresh for me and it’s not really finished.  However, if anyone reading this has any questions I really don’t mind so feel free to ask.

We started with something that was “smaller” but ugh after doing it, it doesn’t seem so “small” if you know what I mean.  I guess what I mean is it’s still “small” but reliving it (in a safe way) made it …not so “small”.  I realize a little more that it was a big deal, all the minimizing of it had a big impact on me.  Ok, so what we started with was my memory of my camp swim instructor throwing me off the end of the dock into the deep part of the lake for BEGINNER swim class.  Basically, I nearly drowned and my best guess is that when I resigned myself to death, I floated to the surface instead. I was around 7 years old, first time at sleep away camp.  Never told a soul until a few years ago.

So basically we set up a little plan of action for safety and self-care first before the actual session. Then the actual session came and I almost didn’t want to go (all parts were in agreement that we were going to go through with this all, though) so I made myself/selves a promise that after the session there would be a trip to the bakery just up the road. We settled on using the tappers and the headphones.  Went through a brief recap of the event, brief statements about how it made me feel and how I saw myself because of the event (i.e. I felt I should have died, I felt no one cared, I felt terrified), where in my body I feel anything and what it feels like (mostly my upper body, feels tense, my chest hurts and I have a hard time breathing). My T would have me focus on these things and then stop and have me report what I experienced.

It was pretty damn intense.  I thought I could put on my tough face and not cry (this memory actually turned out to be a big source for that “don’t be a baby” thing) but, I totally broke down.  I won’t lie and say it wasn’t scary…it was but at the same time I felt safe…my parts I don’t think did really but that ended up with some light shed on it. It was because this memory had a lot of the secret keeping elements to it without being the heavy-duty trauma.  The memory also seemed to hold a lot of metaphor for the rest of my journey in all this.  The thought that doing this EMDR is scary and so much is sunk under the surface that we need to let go and let ourselves sink to the bottom so we can reach the top again. I think one of the majorly scary parts was hearing from my “system’s operation” part/s that there’s more than likely going to be what my T calls Blockers popping up.  They showed me a maze with walls popping up right in front of me, making me walk into them.  One of these parts is of course Dth. I was too scared to bring that up then but I’m going to try to mention it next time, I know it is important to get him on our side.  Ultimately, I think he’s the one who can get past the other blockers.  It’s just scary to think there are all these minor/fragment parts I don’t know about. They make me think of little ghoulies and goblins.

We were just wrapping things up when I got one last ‘fright’.  All of a sudden I had a flash of a girl underwater, struggling, thrashing about and then letting out a loud scream that was soon suffocated by the sound proofness of the water.  Almost loud as day I heard a voice say something like this is when Scr was born/first came about.  I guess it scares me some because I’m still just not used to and/or ok with this all being real.  That this is who I am, who we are.  That these things happened and there were ‘consequences’ (not a good word really but…blah) for them.  For just a moment we got Scr to stop and listen to everyone, I tried to give her a candle for her dark ‘cave’, then we put a sound proof booth around the cave and place a microphone with a two-way switch in.  We check in with her, we let her know we aren’t leaving her or ignoring her but, it’s just a little too loud for us…it’s a little too painful to hear sometimes, to sad to see her like that.  We’ll keep working on this and maybe someday we can help her better.

It feels so far away, that session.  I remember bits and pieces, right now I feel like I’m avoiding remembering it.  Afterward we all went to are various safe places, it took some time (with the help of a walk) but in the end I was able to go about my day without much trouble or distress.  I’m not looking forward to my next session lol! I should find some sort of reward for myself again.  I know good stuff is coming out of this, I know to a degree I felt a little ‘lighter’ or something but, ugh! *sigh* I think it’s worth it…just gotta figure out how to keep going at it.