The Beginning of EDMR Therapy

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 “Can we pretend that I’m fine?”  I say as soon as my therapist sits down. Before he even entered the room where I was at I had my tie almost finished. He knew then I was in a mood. My attitude was not normal and he could tell I was off. I just wanted to get the session over with. I didn’t want to do this tapping thing. I knew it was something that needed to get done. 


Two weeks prior we started to prepare for EDMR. We started bilateral tapping. This is all things to help reprogram the negative out of my brain and fill it with more positives. To show myself that I am worth so many things. Even though I may not believe it right now.


One of the biggest struggles is showing emotions and feelings. Growing up and even into my marriage I wasn’t never really allowed to show any form of feelings or identifiers. If I did I was put down for it. In my marriage I was flat out and told I was wrong for feeling whatever it was that I was feeling. 


Lately, what I am hearing is “stop stressing over this.  You will have more stressful things just like this.  Like seriously.  It’s too much you need to stop” type conversations. Even to the point of trying to vent I got told “stop beating a dead horse.”  For someone who needs to let out anger this isn’t something that should be said. I bottled it. 


I have been bottling for a couple of weeks now. Bottling my feelings, tears, my emotions, everything. I have to pretend that I am ok even at work. When things really are not ok. Things are just falling apart and stressful. I can’t say that. If I do, I’ll get told to stop feeling that way.


Back to therapy! As I am sitting there we begin the bilateral tapping. I shut my eyes and started to tap. All I see is my calm place.  In my calm place I have warm salty air. There is a sunset with beautiful oranges, reds, pinks, and even a little purple to fill the sky.  I am the only one there taking this all in. My calm place. This is important for what I am about to write. 


When I start the tapping it’s calm.  It fills quickly with darkness and my demons try to come in. I fight them off and tell them this place isn’t for them. I begin to bite my cheek and I notice how hard I am biting. My chest begins to hurt. Frustration and anger fill me as I sit there. When I open my eyes my chest hurts and the feelings are still there. 


I try to explain this to my therapist. I can’t. I am just angry. We talked about some of what is causing the feelings. I tried again to get back to my  safe place. Instead, this is what I saw. 


I was sitting in my room on my bed. My night stand and closer  to my left.  My bedroom in front of me to the left. My dresser is directly in front of me. My ex-husbands dresser to the right of my dresser. I have the Ten Commandments written around my door frame. My ex is standing between my door and my closet. I’m staring at my ex. We are in a fight about something stupid. What I remember is me looking at him saying “because I don’t feel the same way you do, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”  He looked at me and said “yes, yes it does”. We fight more about that. 


Seeing all of this again in my head I ended up in a panic attack. The first time I have ever had an attack over this. I think the feelings were so strong it needed a place to go.  As my therapist is trying to tell me I’m doing good breathing I am trying to mask this attack. Trying to get out of this attack on my own. I felt like I needed to. It wasn’t until he got my attention somehow that I realized I was in a safe place and I didn’t need to do this alone. 


When I went back to see the sunset I ended up sitting and crying in my calm space. I had no energy to stand up. Not even in my safe place. I didn’t know how to stand up in my calm place. I had to remember I was safe and my feelings are ok to have. 


Even now with therapy over and I sit here and type this, I am trying to remember I am safe there. I know I am. This is the first time I had an attack like this in therapy. It has drained me that’s for sure. I never thought it was going to be this hard.  I think for what I have been through it’s needed. 


I am very emotionally and mentally drained this evening. I am glad I am doing this. I have a feeling there may be more days like today.  Self-care will be even more important now. I can’t wait to see the outcome when this is all over. 

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