EMDR and me

[scarlettina]

Years ago, after explicitly diagnosing me with PTSD as a result of my experience with my mother's illness and death (a diagnosis that had been gently implied by other therapists), my then-therapist recommended that I undergo EMDR treatment. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a therapeutic technique in which the therapist

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[criada]

I didn't mean it to be terrifying! I'm specifically talking about petit mal seizures, not the big scary grand mal ones with all the body shaking. A seizure is an interruption in the electrical flow of neurons, while PTSD creates situations where we can't turn off that flow. My theory is that the Chicago Block, that Ken got, briefly stops that flow long enough to let the brain reset and notice that actually, they don't need to be in fight-or-flight mode.
My suspicion is that EMDR, in being similar to petit mal seizures, is like a neurological slap to the face: a brief order to the nervous system to stop for a second and calm down.
By being in fight or flight mode, our psyche doesn't have to stop and think about the trauma. But of course, we have to think about the trauma in order to get over it. I hadn't heard about the intense flashbacks one can get with EMDR, but that's still consistent with my petit mal theory. Many times, when I've had petit mals, the period right before the seizure itself (which is just a brief moment of unawareness)is often accompanied by deja vu and sometimes stomach-churning emotions and memories. It's as if, in normal life, I'm on a train moving so fast, I can't see what's outside. But then, the train slows for a moment, then stops, and I can glance the weird, sometimes terrifying stuff out the window. Then the train starts up again, and everything's back to a comfortable blur.

[criada]

I should probably finish my metaphor by saying that we need to remember that occasionally the train will slow down, we will see some awful monsters just outside the window, but that we're also still in the train, and that the monsters outside can't hurt us.