It has been a while since I wrote. I wanted to give some time and thought to the EMDR process before writing about it here. Now that I have had several sessions I feel I can comment on it and it’s effects. First of all, as someone used to therapy, it was odd to be in a therapeutic setting where memories and traumas were not discussed in the normal, talk therapy way. Amazingly, it was sort of refreshing.
I was a bit skeptical, but very intrigued. So, I did my best. I was told to think about the event that best sums up my childhood feelings with my mother and that I feel most upset about.
I gamely thought about my mother and me, when I was 8 years old and we were living in an apartment in Nashville. We had lived away from all extended family for the better part of 2 years by then, having moved away from family in Virginia when I was 6 and on to North Carolina for a year before settling in Nashville for 3 years (one of the most stable times of my childhood). My mother was weeping in the bathroom, lying on the floor. I went to her, cradled her, and told her everything was going to be okay.
Instead of later feeling horrified for using her trapped and isolated child to comfort her and issuing an apology, she later told me how great I was. And so confirmed my role of caretaker, smoother, fixer, enabler and thereby cementing my life long fascination with super hero movies. My powers felt greater than that of a child. I am a child who takes care of an adult, how strong am I? But it was false and too much of a burden on my little girl self.
As an adult, I cannot imagine doing that to a child. As a mother, I cannot fathom resting my weeping head in my son’s arms for him to pick up the pieces…alone. But when I thought about it I felt like, shaking my head…what is wrong with her? How could she do that?
To tell the truth, my event was not one I felt the most upset over. I truthfully could not engage with an old memory with feeling. I could engage in current issues regarding my mother, my children or my sister with feeling…with HUGE feeling, but these old childhood feelings? No. I thought perhaps this therapy would not work for me after all.
As I processed this somewhat numb memory in EMDR, I was shocked at where my mind went. As much thought as I have given to my mother and our relationship, there were certain meaningful connections that I never made until I was in that office, dutifully watching the red dot travel from left to right to left to right to left to right.
Engaging both sides of my brain, it slipped past my overthinking ways and got right to the core of the issue. I couldn’t feel sad or angry about that event now because I couldn’t feel sad or angry about it then. There was no room in our family for my feelings. And my feelings scared me…if I felt them, where would they take me. I just needed to soldier on and act stronger than I really was. If I acknowledged my mother wasn’t great, where would that leave me with 10 more years with her? I needed my delusion.
But emotionally I found what I needed. As my mind traversed the sometimes oddly connected memories I remembered a friend’s mother. She lived up the street and I regularly spent the night with them. My mother would go on dates and would not be reachable for much of the time I was there. I remember weeping in this mother’s arms, shaking, panicky about my mother. “Was she okay? Where was she? Would she return? What if she is in trouble?” My friend’s mother, unable to reach my mother, cradled me until I fell asleep.
And she had me back a second and third and more times and again I wept. And again she held me.
In EMDR, I remembered this and it occurred to me as clearly as anything what was happening. I knew that this woman, this lovely, beautiful woman, was capable of handling my feelings. She would not crash if I let them show. I felt safe there and safe with her. It was an important outlet for me and I think helped preserve a tender part of me.
I found out later that she was going through a rough patch in her own life at that time. I vaguely knew something was happening in their family, but the way it was treated in their home (or the way it seemed to me, at least), was that it was an adult matter, so the kids would not notice a disruption in food, electricity, safety, warmth, fun and play because of it. In my home all of the above was directly related to my mother’s mood, so I became damned good at safe guarding it.
As I write about this friend’s mother, I get teary, but in a good way. I want to thank her for what she did for me, whether she realized what she was doing or not. I keep this in mind when I encounter my son’s friends and I realize that you never know who you were meant to be an angel for. And I hope to be open, just as my friend’s mother was to me.
So, I will continue with EMDR a bit longer to try to reach some peace and closure on a few other triggers, and after this first cycle, I am grateful and calm.
