Preparing for EMDR: A Mental Health Update Post

 EMDR.  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  These words have been the main topic on my mind for the last year.  I read the book, "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van der Kolk, and it made me a believer in EMDR.  I spent a few months searching for a therapist that was trained in EMDR, and it didn't take me long to find Lori and make her my therapist.  She's more than just a therapist to me.  She's a healer who loves her craft and I love to watch her in her element with it.  When we are at our therapy group sessions together, she just glows.  You can tell that it is, indeed, her passion.  EMDR was recommended to me many years ago, but I was nowhere near ready to deal with my trauma at the time.  I am now ready to process my trauma in a safe place with the person I trust implicitly, Lori.

Lori and I have done a lot of preparation work for the reprocessing phase of EMDR.  I had a long way to go when I got to Lori and she knew it right away, so we decided to move slowly so as to not trigger me to have a meltdown or worse, a mental breakdown.  When I first came to Lori, I was having meltdowns every day and it was causing fights with my husband.  I was emotionally dysregulated on a daily basis, so I had to learn some tools, skills and techniques to help me manage myself.  We have been working on emotional regulation for 8 months now and I am finally getting the hang of it!  There was so much work to be done to prepare for EMDR that it felt like we would never get there.  Michael even chose to fight with me a few different times because he thought that Lori and I were taking too long to get to the reprocessing phase.  I went to therapy several times feeling very frustrated with Michael's incessant need to control the timeline of my healing.  I thought about giving up so many different times.  I even wrote about it in my book; the feelings were so strong.  

As of my session this week, Lori says that I am ready for reprocessing.  She said that the last thing that I must do is come to therapy alone so that we both know that I can handle getting myself there and back safely.  Once I have reached that goal, we will begin reprocessing.  I told Michael that he is not to go with me when I go to therapy on Monday.  This is going to be a big test for me, and I need his support instead of him becoming an obstacle in the way of my healing.  He is supposed to help, not hinder, but he's been doing it all wrong lately.  Hopefully, he will get back on board with Lori and me.  I need his support more than ever before, and unfortunately, I feel like I have less of his support than ever.  

Reprocessing my trauma scares me.  I am prone to screaming, crying meltdowns when I get overwhelmed with emotion.  I don't want my therapist to ever see me like that.  I don't even want to let myself cry in front of another human being, let alone melt down in front of them.  I'm also afraid that reprocessing my trauma is going to cause me to remember things I don't necessarily want to remember.  I don't know how I will handle any more traumatic memories.  I already have tons of flashbacks every single day of my life.  If I add any more to that, I will hurt myself or worse.  I don't want to take this risk, but taking this risk is the only way to heal.  This is the part where I strap up my warrior boots and get ready for the battle of my life!  I must go through the things that scare me to get to the healing that I deserve to experience.  Until recently, I felt that I deserved the abuse, rather than I deserve to heal.  The tables have really turned in my head and I am here for it!  

I get so wrapped up in the anxiety about what is next that I forget to live and enjoy the present moment.  I have recently started a new meditation program and through it, I am learning to live mindfully and to mindfully enjoy each and every moment for the gift that it truly is.  Being terminally ill and having trauma left to deal with is a difficult path to walk, but I am doing it.  Part of me wonders if it's worth putting myself through the torture of remembering when I'm just going to die in a few years.  The other part of me wants to heal just in case I happen to outlive the original timeline I was given.  They gave me 10 years to live in 2018.  That was 7 years ago, so I've allegedly only got 3 years left.  According to my most recent rheumatologist, if I were going to die in the next 3 years, I would be a lot sicker now, so that gave me a renewed hope that maybe I'm not as sick as the first doctor tried to make it seem.  Either way, it just might be worth healing the trauma, just in case, so that's where I'm at now.  Have I lost my mind?  Maybe.  Am I going to do it anyway.  Absolutely.  I am a warrior.  This is what we do.  

Stay blessed, y'all...