Tags
Badge of pain, EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing, Fear, Panic, Post-traumatic stress, PTSD, Stuck, Therapy
There’s so many other things I want to be writing on my blog right now.
I’ve got half a dozen draft posts dying to get out the door. But captivated by other things… I’ve been unable to write about those things, or finish my other posts.
And I’m pissed off about that.
Melinda commented on my last post – saying there seems to be a lot of fear running ’round for me right now. And how!
That post was a desperate attempt to explain something… I don’t really understand yet. It’s good that I wrote it though, because H read it (I trust her enough) and could then ask me questions to try and get to the point.
Which we sort of did.
The point would be, I’m going in circles right now. I’m super pissed that I can’t move beyond where I’m at. I feel like there’s a big, fat HUGE boulder smack bang in the middle of the path I’m travelling. There’s no easy way around it, not yet.
Every time I approach it, there’s a sense of incredible panic. The physical reactions of my body make me feel like I’m about to die. Not thinking I’m going to die – feeling it, in every cell. It’s happening in the moment.
If I’m in a therapy session, and we’re talking around/near this blockage, I literally feel like I’m choking, too. There’s an absolute tangible reaction and I cough – like crazy – trying to dislodge… whatever it is.
Then, there’s the residual knives in my heart pain, that takes ages to fade. And even as I think of it now… returns a little, reminding me… ooouuch.
This started when H asked me why I never say Andre’s name when I talk about him.
It’s literally the only thing that I’ve ever been really hesitant to talk about with H. Or anyone, for that matter. I think I might have written his name down in an email to some close friends right when it happened. I can say his name out loud when it’s just me. But I can’t talk about it to other people for some reason.
And because there’s this foundation there I can’t make myself go near… the pain, the terror, the horrendous emotions that go hand in hand with all of this refuse to gracefully fade.
Even though that’s what I want.
Unlike my mother, I don’t want to wear a badge of pain for the rest of my life. I don’t want to not get over it. I know that getting over it doesn’t mean that what happened wasn’t important. I absolutely know that!
And yet… here I am.
So. H suggested that because of the way I’ve described what’s going on, that I might benefit from a technique called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing).
From the website:
EMDR is an information processing therapy and uses an eight phase approach to address the experiential contributors of a wide range of pathologies. It attends to the past experiences that have set the groundwork for pathology, the current situations that trigger dysfunctional emotions, beliefs and sensations, and the positive experience needed to enhance future adaptive behaviours and mental health.
I’m interested to give it a go, of course. When something isn’t working, try something new!
So now H has referred me to two of her colleagues. I need to call them and see who’s available/what works best.
Ha! Another potential opportunity to neglect myself, sit on my hands and not do anything for a while… But I’ll try not to do that. I will attempt to call them, work out which one to see and book in some time and so on…
~Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 