EMDR and Me
My therapy was stalling out with Lenny. It was a lot of me repeating stuff and spinning my wheels. My mental health was overall better, but I still got hit with crippling anxiety attacks two days out of three, and I couldn't seem to let go of the trauma I'd suffered over weeks of pain and operations. Lenny and I talked about this, including the fact that one session with my sister and her horse-based gestalt therapy seemed to jolt me forward more than weeks of talk therapy. Lenny said that it was likely I needed to be more physical with my therapy, but Lenny wasn't experienced with that sort of thing. He put out the idea of me seeing a therapist for EMDR.
An Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapist has a PTSD patient track lights with just their eyes (no head movement) while thinking or talking about the traumatic experiences. The short version is that trauma is first realized in the right (emotional) side of the brain, and we normally deal with it by bringing the sensation over the left (logical) side of the brain, which allows us to say, "It happened and it was bad, but it's over and we don't need to worry about it anymore." In PTSD patients (like me), the trauma gets stuck on the right side and can't migrate to the left, which causes anxiety. The EMDR process helps engage both sides of the brain while recalling trauma, which allows the patient to settle it.
Lenny gave me the name of an EMDR therapist, and I went to two sessions--one "get to know you" session and one actual EMDR session.
I have to say I was skeptical. I'd done a lot of reading and research, all of which supported EMDR as valid, but in actual practice, EMDR comes across as crystals and copper bracelets. Until you start crying out of nowhere during the session, and you emerge from it with a feeling of euphoria that lasts for several days (and makes you figure out how to put mirror glaze on cakes), and you realize your anxiety levels have dropped sharply. After just one session.
So I'm going back again.
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An Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapist has a PTSD patient track lights with just their eyes (no head movement) while thinking or talking about the traumatic experiences. The short version is that trauma is first realized in the right (emotional) side of the brain, and we normally deal with it by bringing the sensation over the left (logical) side of the brain, which allows us to say, "It happened and it was bad, but it's over and we don't need to worry about it anymore." In PTSD patients (like me), the trauma gets stuck on the right side and can't migrate to the left, which causes anxiety. The EMDR process helps engage both sides of the brain while recalling trauma, which allows the patient to settle it.
Lenny gave me the name of an EMDR therapist, and I went to two sessions--one "get to know you" session and one actual EMDR session.
I have to say I was skeptical. I'd done a lot of reading and research, all of which supported EMDR as valid, but in actual practice, EMDR comes across as crystals and copper bracelets. Until you start crying out of nowhere during the session, and you emerge from it with a feeling of euphoria that lasts for several days (and makes you figure out how to put mirror glaze on cakes), and you realize your anxiety levels have dropped sharply. After just one session.
So I'm going back again.
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