(no subject)
So, the therapy thing. I had the type of treatment wrong too; I was searching the net for the type of therapy it was because I couldn't remember what it was called. Now I know for sure though, EMDR. Anyway, Tali says I have to write about the experience. She insists, actually. Says that it is crucial to the therapy, and that it will help me immensely. So I'm going to record my sessions here, because well, it's my fucking diary. I'm going to cut it out though, so if any rubberneckers want to go there they can, but warning--there's graphic stuff there and it's highly personal, so if you're going to be an asshole, please don't bother. Like I said, it's my diary, goddamnit. So without much ado . . .
EMDR Therapy Session 10/30/05:
She tells me to pick an image, one to display on the wall--or technically the closed wooden door of her office. This will be an image Through the Looking Glass, and I am Alice, about to jump through a painted page splattered with blood and shadows.
How melodramatic is that?
So, the image I select is an easy one, because it's one that rotates not far beneath the surface of my everyday thoughts. Not to say I think about it everyday; I've probably gone months at a time without thinking of it, or years. Yet it is always there, fat sneering monster from my fabled youth.
Against the wall, I slap it there. My mother's bloody face. The buttons on the handset of the phone. I am six years old. If his snarling accusations had a face, it would that of a snarling rabid dog. If my mother's screams possessed their own emblem, it would be the numbers she shrieks, voice wet with tears and snot: "Dawnie, call 911, please call 911!" Her screams are immortalized in the phone falling from my hands, my feet across the floor, and then I'm under the bed, hands pressed over my ears.
And at the time I was so afraid. Afraid he was going to kill her and it was my fault. My hands were stained with it. And I was angry. So mad because I was just a little kid, and it shouldn't have been my place, my responsibility. Lost and small an powerless to do anything about it, except maybe so what she said and call the cops on my daddy, who would then be taken to jail, and then what?
And the image is not an image anymore, it's a place I've lived.
I talk about another night when Dad sent me to my room and I was crying and I couldn't stop--scared and crushed little thing, righteous and frustrated too on my blue apple bedspread. And then there was just his fist in my face, blinding pain and blood, and I feel like I can't even cry because I can't breathe. There's just blood and white hurt, and him telling me how he was going to take me to the curcus the next day, but now he wasn't going to. He slams the door and leaves me alone with the pain and the dark.
She reminds me to breathe. At her guidance, I imagine myself standing in a corner, seeing her there, curled up over her knees, small hands cupping her face. I've been here before, but I haven't. I always sense her presence there: damaged little girl. I've had a lot of hatred for her, actually, all my life. But this is different. She's not this unseen sprite inside me at this moment. Now she's just hurt and bleeding and scared, heartbroken. Would I like to comfort her? Yes. I would, but it's awkward for me, to envision cleaning the blood from her face, and holding her against me like I would my own child. Stroking her hair, and whispering and singing softly, and telling her it will be okay. That it's not her fault. That it will end. Not for a long time, and there will be a lot more pain first, but the time will come when she'll be free of it, this place.
And I can almost feel her hair beneath my hands. She will be free of it.
I feel very strange. There is a pressure in the middle of my forehead, and my whole body tingles and aches, like it's filled with that pressure.
Then I'm asked to think of a safe place. This isn't easy for me, because there are not many places I feel safe, or that bring me comfort. So instead I think of sunlight. Not necessarily any place, just that feeling I get sometimes when I'm sitting in the grass and sun is warm on face, and bright, and it seems that in the warm breath of that sunlight that there could be no evil that can’t be defeated in the world. And I am warmed at first. Then it seems a cloud passes over the sun, and I feel a chill. There is a skeptical thought that flickers through my mind that says it's this won't work, I can't be warmed, but I push it away. I'm just going to focus on her finger ticking back and forth, and it looks almost phallic.
When prompted to think of a place . . . where am I? The pressure is like a buzzing in my head, and it's hard for me to grasp onto something. But then I see it, the bus stop on 8th and Josephine. I'm waiting for the bus there. I feel free here. Liberated. Because I know the bus will come, and I will be able to get on it and go anywhere I want. The bus arrives, and I get on. I walk to the back of the bus, the long bench, and I sit in the corner where I always sit, with one leg propped up on the metal pole armrest of the seat in front of me. I look out the window, and it's dirty, just like RTD windows always are. I look out at the bus stop, and there they are. My mom and dad, and that little girl, six years old. Their hands are on her skinny shoulders and they watch me through the window as it pulls away. And I feel good. The pressure swells in my chest as they wave goodbye to me, and my own fingers rest against the glass, not pressed there, just resting. And I am free. I will leave them there, where they belong. Because I can go anywhere I want.
The bus takes me to downtown Denver. My stomping ground. I get off at the 16th Street Mall. I walk up the mall strip and go into a coffee shop. I get a cup of coffee and sit at one of the tables on the street. I watch the people walking by, the trolleys running up and down the street. It feels good to be here. I am happy to be alone here, peaceful, in a place where I can breathe and relax. Looking up the street, I see three figures coming toward me through the crowd. There is Chad, and he holds Aidan on his hip and Scarlett's little hand is tucked in his. They come toward, and Chad's eyes are on mine, even as people pass his gaze doesn't break. The sunlight is that late afternoon sort, the kind that is warm and almost glows, shimmering a silhouette behind them. I will join them.
In blood w/luv,
qj
EMDR Therapy Session 10/30/05:
She tells me to pick an image, one to display on the wall--or technically the closed wooden door of her office. This will be an image Through the Looking Glass, and I am Alice, about to jump through a painted page splattered with blood and shadows.
How melodramatic is that?
So, the image I select is an easy one, because it's one that rotates not far beneath the surface of my everyday thoughts. Not to say I think about it everyday; I've probably gone months at a time without thinking of it, or years. Yet it is always there, fat sneering monster from my fabled youth.
Against the wall, I slap it there. My mother's bloody face. The buttons on the handset of the phone. I am six years old. If his snarling accusations had a face, it would that of a snarling rabid dog. If my mother's screams possessed their own emblem, it would be the numbers she shrieks, voice wet with tears and snot: "Dawnie, call 911, please call 911!" Her screams are immortalized in the phone falling from my hands, my feet across the floor, and then I'm under the bed, hands pressed over my ears.
And at the time I was so afraid. Afraid he was going to kill her and it was my fault. My hands were stained with it. And I was angry. So mad because I was just a little kid, and it shouldn't have been my place, my responsibility. Lost and small an powerless to do anything about it, except maybe so what she said and call the cops on my daddy, who would then be taken to jail, and then what?
And the image is not an image anymore, it's a place I've lived.
I talk about another night when Dad sent me to my room and I was crying and I couldn't stop--scared and crushed little thing, righteous and frustrated too on my blue apple bedspread. And then there was just his fist in my face, blinding pain and blood, and I feel like I can't even cry because I can't breathe. There's just blood and white hurt, and him telling me how he was going to take me to the curcus the next day, but now he wasn't going to. He slams the door and leaves me alone with the pain and the dark.
She reminds me to breathe. At her guidance, I imagine myself standing in a corner, seeing her there, curled up over her knees, small hands cupping her face. I've been here before, but I haven't. I always sense her presence there: damaged little girl. I've had a lot of hatred for her, actually, all my life. But this is different. She's not this unseen sprite inside me at this moment. Now she's just hurt and bleeding and scared, heartbroken. Would I like to comfort her? Yes. I would, but it's awkward for me, to envision cleaning the blood from her face, and holding her against me like I would my own child. Stroking her hair, and whispering and singing softly, and telling her it will be okay. That it's not her fault. That it will end. Not for a long time, and there will be a lot more pain first, but the time will come when she'll be free of it, this place.
And I can almost feel her hair beneath my hands. She will be free of it.
I feel very strange. There is a pressure in the middle of my forehead, and my whole body tingles and aches, like it's filled with that pressure.
Then I'm asked to think of a safe place. This isn't easy for me, because there are not many places I feel safe, or that bring me comfort. So instead I think of sunlight. Not necessarily any place, just that feeling I get sometimes when I'm sitting in the grass and sun is warm on face, and bright, and it seems that in the warm breath of that sunlight that there could be no evil that can’t be defeated in the world. And I am warmed at first. Then it seems a cloud passes over the sun, and I feel a chill. There is a skeptical thought that flickers through my mind that says it's this won't work, I can't be warmed, but I push it away. I'm just going to focus on her finger ticking back and forth, and it looks almost phallic.
When prompted to think of a place . . . where am I? The pressure is like a buzzing in my head, and it's hard for me to grasp onto something. But then I see it, the bus stop on 8th and Josephine. I'm waiting for the bus there. I feel free here. Liberated. Because I know the bus will come, and I will be able to get on it and go anywhere I want. The bus arrives, and I get on. I walk to the back of the bus, the long bench, and I sit in the corner where I always sit, with one leg propped up on the metal pole armrest of the seat in front of me. I look out the window, and it's dirty, just like RTD windows always are. I look out at the bus stop, and there they are. My mom and dad, and that little girl, six years old. Their hands are on her skinny shoulders and they watch me through the window as it pulls away. And I feel good. The pressure swells in my chest as they wave goodbye to me, and my own fingers rest against the glass, not pressed there, just resting. And I am free. I will leave them there, where they belong. Because I can go anywhere I want.
The bus takes me to downtown Denver. My stomping ground. I get off at the 16th Street Mall. I walk up the mall strip and go into a coffee shop. I get a cup of coffee and sit at one of the tables on the street. I watch the people walking by, the trolleys running up and down the street. It feels good to be here. I am happy to be alone here, peaceful, in a place where I can breathe and relax. Looking up the street, I see three figures coming toward me through the crowd. There is Chad, and he holds Aidan on his hip and Scarlett's little hand is tucked in his. They come toward, and Chad's eyes are on mine, even as people pass his gaze doesn't break. The sunlight is that late afternoon sort, the kind that is warm and almost glows, shimmering a silhouette behind them. I will join them.
In blood w/luv,
qj