Almost proud

Trauma. Therapy. Emdr. Healing. Trust.

These are all words used with great frequency in my life. All things I’m working on and living with.

If you’ve been here for a while, like….years…you’ll know that I’ve tried, and failed epically, using emdr to heal from trauma. A lot of trauma.

If you don’t know, emdr is a method of reprocessing trauma into the appropriate areas of your brain so that they don’t feel so big and powerful anymore. It’s effective, and it works.

If you let it.

The problem with me, is that…I don’t let it.

It’s not intentional, my brain just puts up these roadblocks and walls that won’t allow me to take a look deep enough into what I need to look at in order for the process to work. My brain tries to control the narrative, instead of letting it just…work.

Trust.

That’s where trust comes into play. Being vulnerable, allowing yourself to feel, letting someone in…it isn’t easy.

I don’t know how it works for everyone, but for me…I have some deep shit to work through. Some seriously massive things, and I have to actually do 2 different versions of emdr because…ya know, why not?

One is the addiction protocol…because apparently you need to get a handle on that before you can move on to the other one.

Anyway, we’ve been down this road before. A few times. And we haven’t even touched it in a few years because I was just nowhere near ready.

It’s hard. And vulnerable. And messy. All of the things I don’t like doing or feeling.

But…sometimes, life is absolutely fucking shit enough to the point where…you get there.

You learn through experiences and time who is there. Who isn’t going anywhere. Who’s earned your trust, and who shows up. Over and over. (Mostly.)

When asked how therapy went last night, this was my response:

My life has been fucked up enough to the point where I’m broken. As broken as a person can be, although I don’t look or sound like it on the outside. My therapist knows me enough to see all of my red flags, as subtle yet screaming as they are.

We’ve been trying to do emdr for literally years now, and I’ve always failed at it. Because my walls are too high, I’m too afraid to be vulnerable, and my brain throws up roadblocks. Tries to control the narrative instead of “letting go” and going wherever it needs to.

But we talked about it again today, probably because she’s smart enough to see me beyond my words. We tried different things, just to start the process…to see if I was finally ready for it, finally trusted her enough to let her in and be as vulnerable as emdr (in my case) demands.

We didn’t actually do emdr yet, and in my case, I need a few different types of it (addiction protocol first so I don’t dive head first into all that shit once emdr opens up all the wounds) and then the more regular one.

But I did a good job. A better job than I’ve ever done at even just the most basic steps.
She was really proud of me…even though all I did was not shut down.

I didn’t do anything other than hold a conversation about trauma while holding the hand buzzers, but it was still a really big deal. It felt like something.
Like, I’m broken enough to stop fighting it. Idk. That probably doesn’t make sense. But I’m almost a little bit proud of myself.

It’s as simply put as that.

Last night, I didn’t do anything more complicated than have a conversation about the possibility of emdr and what it would mean, while holding the hand buzzer things. I didn’t shut down…and I tried really hard to just…be present. And honest…without filtering it.

It wasn’t a big deal, and for “normal” people…it’s not something they would consider to be challenging.

But I did a good job. Better than I’ve literally ever done at ANYTHING having to do with emdr, or the building blocks towards it.

My therapist was proud of me. I know because she said so, right before I shot her a look and told her to not say shit like that. (Obviously, the normal response there.)

Life isn’t great right now. It’s heavier and more challenging than it has any right to be.

But I desperately want things to be okay.

I can’t control what I can’t control.

But I need to control what I can control.

And I can control how I respond to things, and what I can do to pull myself out of the whole that life has so kindly dug for me.

I’m almost proud of myself.

And maybe one day, I can be actually proud, and not just almost.