My Personal Journey with EMDR
I had made it through a lifetime--or so I'd thought--of what some people would call narcissistic abuse, raised by a very well-intentioned mother albeit struggling with her own unresolved trauma and associated sequelae of anxiety, OCD, depression, alcoholism, bulimia, and kleptomania, followed by an abusive ten-year relationship with someone with similar struggles. My father was largely absent from the picture as my parents officially divorced and he moved to another country when I was 9 (you guessed it, unresolved trauma there too). In the middle of my parents' attempts to reconcile I had developed juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 7. My mother also remarried and while I felt an attachment to my stepfather he suddenly abandoned us permanently when I was 15. During both childhood and early adulthood I experienced sexual abuse and harassment. I attempted suicide and it was met with what felt like punishment. My mother died of cancer after a six-year battle during the middle of my pre-doctoral internship, and my relationship with older sister fell apart for a period. At the start of the pandemic, just months after starting my first job as licensed psychologist, I had to make the difficult decision to put down my cat who developed cancer abruptly and aggressively. A few months later my grandma, who I grew up close to and hadn't been able to see in 2 years because of the falling out with my sister with whom she was living, died. I still find it funny to think that out of all the trauma I endured the straw that broke the camel's back, that catalyzed my journey to awakening, it was real, genuine heartbreak. True love you might say.
I'd spent the bulk of my life surviving in the ways I knew how, a mix of healthy and unhealthy coping with all being forms of denial, our basic human defense mechanism. On the unhealthier side I would numb/detach from my feelings by finding comfort in sex, drugs, food, and alcohol and intellectualize my emotions to minimize their validity; on the healthier side I focused my attention on productive tasks like working, studying, reading, writing, exercising, hiking, cuddling with my cats, and helping others. I had been able to completely detach myself from my feelings and it wasn't until being in the middle of an EMDR therapy session at the age of 31 that I was able to fully acknowledge my own struggle with depression since the age of 15 as I'd spent my life focusing more on my mother's, ex's, and clients' struggles and burying my own. A few days later and for the first time in my life I experienced shame in my body--I had experienced it endlessly in my head over the years in the form of thoughts about being unworthy, unlovable, inadequate, etc. I chuckled as I was feeling this pit in my stomach that I'd never felt before, because I was actually like a basic scientist so curious about an unfamiliar experience that I had to pull out the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) describing your emotions handout to research what I might be feeling and then it all made sense.
EMDR therapy has been instrumental in my journey to awakening. Supplemented with building and sustaining other daily practices like mindfulness, journaling, healthy eating, exercise, and meaningful connections, it has helped me come out of denial and learn to look at both myself and others around me through a lens of empathy and compassion rather than shame. It has helped me come back to owning and trusting myself and improved my depression, anxiety, and grief. It has been both incredibly painful and fulfilling at the same time, as I can now truly understand the experience of posttraumatic growth which I spent years researching for my doctoral dissertation.
I'd spent the bulk of my life surviving in the ways I knew how, a mix of healthy and unhealthy coping with all being forms of denial, our basic human defense mechanism. On the unhealthier side I would numb/detach from my feelings by finding comfort in sex, drugs, food, and alcohol and intellectualize my emotions to minimize their validity; on the healthier side I focused my attention on productive tasks like working, studying, reading, writing, exercising, hiking, cuddling with my cats, and helping others. I had been able to completely detach myself from my feelings and it wasn't until being in the middle of an EMDR therapy session at the age of 31 that I was able to fully acknowledge my own struggle with depression since the age of 15 as I'd spent my life focusing more on my mother's, ex's, and clients' struggles and burying my own. A few days later and for the first time in my life I experienced shame in my body--I had experienced it endlessly in my head over the years in the form of thoughts about being unworthy, unlovable, inadequate, etc. I chuckled as I was feeling this pit in my stomach that I'd never felt before, because I was actually like a basic scientist so curious about an unfamiliar experience that I had to pull out the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) describing your emotions handout to research what I might be feeling and then it all made sense.
EMDR therapy has been instrumental in my journey to awakening. Supplemented with building and sustaining other daily practices like mindfulness, journaling, healthy eating, exercise, and meaningful connections, it has helped me come out of denial and learn to look at both myself and others around me through a lens of empathy and compassion rather than shame. It has helped me come back to owning and trusting myself and improved my depression, anxiety, and grief. It has been both incredibly painful and fulfilling at the same time, as I can now truly understand the experience of posttraumatic growth which I spent years researching for my doctoral dissertation.
