Tuesday Morning
Tuesday was my last EMDR session for 2023. It was a rough year for me and TBH we ended up doing more talk therapy sessions than EMDR because I was not in the greatest mental space during surgeries and with post cancer medications. The thing about EMDR is, if you give it your all during the 90 minutes sessions you are left pretty drained. To boot your brain continues to re-process the memories you worked on so, at least for me, it could take up to a week to recover from a session then I would have another.
The last few months I started having represssed memories pop up during our sessions. I won’t get into what they are because I don’t want to potentially deal with the backlash should anyone she knows ends up reading this. They were awful. The next few days at work were awful and then the weekend would come, and I was so exhausted from trying to contain so much energy that I could barely do anything but sleep and watch mindless TV.
I am in my 3rd week of feeling better thanks to a new Naturopath and new Oncologist. So far so good so we gave it a go. 15 months ago we came up with 4 “threads” so to speak. 4 things that I felt were a problem in my life and the biggest one was the constant and agonizing feeling of guilt. Guilt over everything. Guilt over stuff I have done and stuff I have never done. And then guilt over stuff I never did but was told I did. Others were told this too. I remember moving back to Boston maybe 23 years ago and seeing her friend at the DMV. “I can’t tell you where she is” she said all nervously as if I was about to take her life. It was insane to me at the time. Why was she so scared of me and why did she think I would care where she lived? I didn’t even ask all I said was Hello.
Through EMDR I understand why she was scared. She was scared for the same reason Hale’s friends all started ignoring or blocking me on social media a few days after his death when I reached out to them. They were lied to like I was lied to, and they believe her. After all, why wouldn’t they? A mother could never make up such horrible stories about their own child so they must be true. I heard that I stole my brother’s car and wrecked it. I stole his social security number and ruined his credit. I stole my mother’s jewelry and sold it.
I could get into a tit for tat about what really happened because I was actually there for some of these events, and it wasn’t me who was involved but I will drop it here. It isn’t worth any extra energy. What is worth the energy is telling you about Tuesday’s session. Guilt. Never ending guilt. The last memory in this thread was me having to tell my orchestra teacher that I destroyed my brother’s violin. I refused so she sent my brother with a note telling her about my violent rage and destruction of public-school property. When Mrs. Rankin confronted me, and I denied it she said, “so you are telling me that your mother is lying?”. I remember shaking my head and saying yes but I was terrified. The teacher did not believe me, and my poor mother and brother were absolved from having to pay for the damages that their savage child brought upon the instrument.
As we started this memory, I was already not that disturbed by it. We have worked so hard on so many things that I actually was just quite indifferent. I wasn’t mad or upset at all. We start working through it doing the 30 seconds on and check in, still nothing. Then, clear as day, I am watching this event happen again in the living room at 1731 Washington Street. My brother standing with his violin across his chest and my mother off to my right. We don’t speak. We just look at each other. As we stare my mother is being “erased” to my right. Like a dirty pencil eraser making marks across a crisp white piece of paper. Now she is just a blur, but we keep staring at each other. Without words we say “it doesn’t matter. None of these things matter”. A Huge peace falls over me for the first time ever in one of these sessions. My whole life with Hale comes to a head in that moment. He was a dick to me all of my life. But now I realize that none of it was his fault. He was doing to me what he saw being done to me by her. It wasn’t his job at 8,9,10 years old to learn how to treat his sister. It was her job to teach him. How to gaslight and manipulate, those were all learned behaviors. And in that moment, we finally stopped hating each other.
He passed away just over 3 years ago. I remember hearing from my real friends that in death the truth is brought to light. I’d like to think he now knows I never did the terrible things to him he was told I did and in that moment a few days ago I think he let me know. 3 years later.
It was also such a proufound feeling that I can’t help but wonder if something else happened that day somewhere in someone elses life. I will never know but that’s ok. For now, I am going to enjoy a Christmas where Christmas music doesn’t make me cry and remember terrible things that happened over the holidays as a child. Instead, I look forward to having fun away with B and not hating myself while doing it.
It is hard work. It will bring you to hell and back BUT the time is going to pass if you do it or not. 15 months ago today seemed like a lifetime away yet here I am. If you have severe trauma and it impacts your life and you are aware that things could change for the better I cannot recommend looking for that therapist who does EMDR enough!! If you are young, don’t wait until you are 50. I wish I had started it earlier in life but I am also aware that this experience at this time and with this person was/is exactly the time I was supposed to be doing it.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or need some encouragement. I do not have all the answers, but I have been in darker than dark places and pretended that everything was ok for a very long time and lived long enough to start peeking out the curtain to the ohter side. Long way to go but like I said earlier, the time is going to pass anyway.
This song comes to mind and with the recent passing of Shane MacGowan it seems fitting.
