Just after emdr, but we didn't do emdr. I filled in those cognitive worksheets and can see how I've tangled my childhood and war experiences into one big mess, because it does actually make a type of sense (emotional sense, there's an emotional logic connecting the images not a rational one)
It seems protective and productive somehow. My flashbacks typically start with war, go into childhood and come back out in war. The childhood part is by far the most intense but couched in war stuff it doesn't feel as bad. Because in war I wasn't a helpless frozen child and I can feel that in flashbacks too. It's not as bad as a conquered child. But it's why it feels so important to escape (to not become a conquered child again).
One of my legs is shaking so much writing this, more than it has ever shaken before.
Have gotten to a type of plateau with emdr where it only ever leads into childhood. I can see that I need to let it go there, and the practitioner told me that too. He said we probably should have started there, but to be honest I feel that starting with war was essential- to learning that emdr works, to learning to trust him and the process- and to feel safe enough to access my feelings and feel that they can change or end. Feelings about war or genocide are the way into all my feelings (this is why I am so worried about being extra with my friends cos I know those are massive subjects and I can't feel anything without feelings those feelings first and foremost). So I think with emdr I am going to have to lean into this structure, to try to stop resisting it going back to my childhood.
I also think the practitioner realized in this session that the childhood stuff I am talking about is sexual assault. He showed me a video during it and I was really fidgety while it was playing (It was a description of flashbacks during sex and i honestly felt like the words were attacking me). It might also be because I included feeling weight on my chest as a trigger when asked and because I said what happened with the coworker has reminded me of some stuff from childhood I hadn't understood at the time. Before today, I don't think this was clear. It's a relief not to have to spell it out.
I need to share the details of what I remember about that so badly. I told the other counsellor about that and she asked me what I wanted to share the details for. I said, just not to be alone with them. And she said they was quite a good reason and I could tell her in 2 weeks with my eyes closed. Or write it down. I'll write it down for me anyway. So I know what I am trying to say. And maybe hand it to her if I can't keep my train of thought. It's such a long and confusing story but I need to try and order it somehow. There is a loose kind of sense in there. Maybe a timeline is helpful for me to orient myself. I think I said also that I feel new memories on their way to me (I do, I really do). How hard my body is trying to numb me, how often my mind is going blank and how much avoidance is rearing it's head. How much I have the urge to eat to avoid my feelings. To not sleep enough to avoid my feelings. I think that I need to share what I do remember, to try and give it a life outside of me and see if it helps get if off my chest, to have room for the other (and I think more troublesome) stuff, the blackness I don't remember). I think maybe it's like emdr where I need to see that I can resolve or lessen the impact of some stuff before delving into things that are more traumatizing. I think what I'm looking for in telling her is for her to know the details and feel it's not my fault and I didn't deserve it. For her to feel my feelings matter and it matters what happens to me.
This is exactly what I was craving and didn't get 10 years ago, when my life fell apart the first time. I had to tell that story as a condition of being part of the activism I was involved in and my healing was not the point of that. Eliciting others stories was. It was current, it was deeply traumatic, and I couldn't even say the word abuse. Without even knowing it I wanted someone to hear that story and tell me, you could never have deserved that behavior from him. It was not your fault and not really about you in any way. I also wanted hope, that you can have power actually when you think you have none. That you can come together through activism and lessen your shame and transform what life is like both for you and for everyone. I got that in abundance from being involved in that project. It was also true that a painful story from me, that I was expected to detail, with feeling, at the drop of a hat was the entry price of my involvement. I didn't feel like I could negotiate that. My then girlfriend tried to be involved without sharing her traumatic history and it limited how much responsibility she was given because they felt she didn't trust them enough. I remember them telling me I told my traumatic stories as if I didn't care about them and I didn't care about people's rights because I told these things in a monotone, in a way without easily accessible authentic feelings on cue for to develop others and then tidied away neatly again. I really internalized there was something wrong with me until I stumbled upon Judith Herman's book trauma and recovery and read it thinking every sentence 'that's me' 'that's me'. I've spent my adult life thinking 'i have to fix the defect that makes me numb in order to be of use to others' when what will fix it really, is being able to tell others what my experience really was (as a daughter, as a receiver of abuse, as a woman of my ethnic group, as a lesbian, as a colonized person and witness to some awful precursors to genocide of another colonized people) and have people not react as they have before, with disbelief, distancing, minimizing and blaming me and telling me I know nothing or that what I feel and what happens to me just does not matter to anyone.
This is what I'm hoping for in telling her. A different reaction to what happened before. I think I need a person to stay with me despite the story I will tell.
