Words can't do it justice, the beautiful and sacred work of therapy.
We try with metaphor. We talk about the cracks where the light gets in, the kintsukuroi, the butterfly (if you're not familiar with my thoughts on the butterfly, I whinge about her here sometimes). But we can't really touch it. Unless you read Yalom every day or have had the good fortune to experience the deep work of psychotherapy, any attempts to verbally capture what happens are hollow shells of the felt experience. Yet, we try to capture it in words, as we try to capture the sky-fire at sunrise or the rolling constancy of the waves.
All that to say, what follows is an attempt to capture an ephemeral and transformative psychotherapy session. The one where we did Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which I know, I know, we were taught was no more effective than exposure therapy. I took the classes and analyzed the research too. And then I tried it, as the client, and it changed things.
I'll just jump right in here.
(I do this in therapy, too. This thing where I carefully set the stage and encourage minimal expectations and prevaricate before I say what's on my heart or mind. I used to beat myself up for it, but in this moment I find it sort of endearing.)
The first time I did EMDR was during that bleak and frigid winter where Jonathan was in the hospital and I was trying to hold it together whilst the foundation was disintegrating. (One of those "chess pieces aligning the wrong way" situations that we can all casually shrug off in retrospect.)
I did EMDR because my therapist seemed strangely concerned in an early session when I nonchalantly mentioned something that someone did to me in my early teens.
Pause for a moment to notice the groundswell of #metoo. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable, to have women (and men) speaking out in a public space. Naming names. Maybe it strikes you as some sort of attention-seeking airing of dirty laundry, holding skeletons up for all to see? That's okay. We can all have feelings and opinions. But for me (not as a representative of women who have been abused, but just me), the movement is a beautiful and powerful reclaiming of strength. Who says I can't be free/ From all of the things that I used to be/ Rewrite my history/ Who says I can't be free? And as to why women (and men) are choosing to use social media as their platform right now? I resonate with what Lindy West wrote in her unapologetic piece for the New York Times.
I don't feel the white-hot rage anymore, for reasons which will perhaps become more clear in the stories that follow. I'm not here to call out the person who molested me for a period of time in my early teens, though I'm aware that people who know me can suss it out on their own. I've alluded to it in passing before. But now, here, today, it's important to me to say that yes, the man who molested me was my step-father. I don't yearn to see his demise. I don't even wish him pain, though I used to. I used to be angry at so many people. And when I say "used to," I don't mean years ago when I was young and didn't know any better. I mean, like, last week. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So I mentioned these experiences to my therapist pretty early on, during those initial information-gathering sessions. It was curious, his reaction. Suddenly I thought it was, perhaps, a thing worthy of emotional response on my part? Crack that window just a bit and suddenly I'm feeling so much that I can't breathe.
EMDR was captivating and mysterious. I didn't know the rules, so the incessant rattle of self-judgment (I need a gold star for therapy performance, natch) was muffled. I could hear myself think. I could chase thoughts in the silence. In that space, I opened to pain in the memories, and sadness, and shame. I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to say, so I said whatever I could fit into words. I wrote my step-father an email wherein I recounted the abuse and established a boundary. I felt the shamey things that people feel after other people hurt them in these ways.
Therapy marched on. The fissure in the dam seeped and pooled, and I fell through the water into the dark. Everything contracted. Everything expanded. The feelings were blinding bright. Everything was askew, a mess, chaotic. Then it would calm.
As I approached the fourth theraversary (anniversary of the first therapy session, which is totally normal to memorialize and not at all weird I'm not kidding), I was hyper-aware that I couldn't quantify the value-added of therapy in my life. I wondered whether the "work" I needed to do in therapy was to realize that by going to therapy I was only perpetuating my own problems. The way to win was, of course, to quit therapy.
Ever-interested in winning, of course, I did.
I'll blame a friend for nudging me toward framing the dramatic termination of therapy over this past summer as more of a therapy sabbatical. Seven weeks without therapy. In earnest, I read books and intentionally focused on engaging in study of self-compassion. I made some inroads there. Nothing major; as my friend's therapist says, "moving the needle just a little bit." With dedicated practice, I could get through a 10-minute lovingkindness meditation without weeping! There was self-compassion in the cracks.
We began again, in therapy. I don't know how my therapist felt, but I felt trepidation. I was ginger and stilted. I talked about having these gates in therapy, where everything I said had to pass through multiple gates before I said it. Was it worthwhile? Was it self-pitying? Would it move me forward? We talked about family and friends and love and attachment. One day, I decided to find these faux step-siblings I'd seen in an old photo album my father's sister gave me after my father died. My father was with a woman after he and mom split, and she had kids who he interacted with regularly for a pretty long span of their formative years. I found them. An hour later, my not-step-sister and I exchanged a string of messages while I tried to hang on to the world because it was spinning too fast. Turns out he didn't have a perfect family in a perfect parallel life (this was my greatest fear). Turns out he was an emotionally and physically abusive raging alcoholic who died overdosing in a cheap motel on the outskirts of Denver. But, she said, when he was sober he was so funny and so intelligent and witty. I didn't know that. I grieved for her, for her brother and her mom and for myself. For them, the pain of knowing what he was like. For me, the pain and simultaneous relief of not knowing him at all.
Every session, no matter which direction I decided we'd go, I ran into the same wall. This particular wall was nihilistic. I kept finding myself in this stuck place where I realized it was all well and good that I'd dexterously sorted the "not my fault" from the rest when sifting through all my experiences, all my parental relationships and histories. Well done, yes, but to what end? There's no changing the past. There's no replacing people from the past with people from the present. Nothing could change these truths. No amount of trust and consistency and esteem from my therapist could make him be my hero-father. Consequently, there was no hope.
I was angry at my therapist. I told him that, in many ways. (I don't tend to hide how I feel about my therapist from him, which I think is good for the therapy process but I do feel badly about it sometimes.) I was angry that he'd sold me on therapy only to get me to this enlightenment dead-end. I wrote and talked again and again about how futile therapy was (and therapy is sort of my career, so I was doubting everything). What is the point of self-awareness? Why wasn't there relief in this recognition of truth and complexity? I was angry at myself. I was angry at everyone. Despair crept in around the edges. Everything was heavy.
Whenever I closed my eyes, whenever my husband showed me affection, my step-father's hands were there. Why? I couldn't figure it out. It was hard to sleep. It was all too much. I thought we'd dealt with this. Why was it resurfacing?
My therapist gently suggested that perhaps when we did EMDR in 2013, I'd sort of excavated the first layer of the experience. I'd made progress in terms of being hesitantly willing to acknowledge it and admit that it was not my fault. (I wasn't sure whether I actually believed it wasn't my fault, but my logical brain understood as much.) So, we did EMDR again. It worked in a way that could be measured objectively. Intrusive thoughts and physical sensations associated with the molestation significantly reduced, sleep improved, mood improved. But I didn't want to get all puffed up with pride, so I told myself that EMDR was fine but nothing we needed to do again. Commence a three-week stretch of me just being, as the kids say, irritable AF. My therapist did the classic therapist wonder™, where he wondered aloud whether the anger I felt was lingering after the previous EMDR session... and maybe it'd like to get out?
I guess I could explain what I'm even talking about when I keep saying EMDR. There's really no way to make EMDR sound less weird than it is. Perhaps you'll consider the origin story. Zoom in on Francine Shapiro, walking home through the park after a long day at work. It's autumn, and Dr. Shapiro tracks the leaves as they blow back and forth. She feels calmer, tracking the blowing leaves and reflecting on her day, and eureka! she hypothesizes that moving one's eyes back and forth while holding in mind difficult thoughts and feelings can facilitate the neuroprocessing of trauma. Added bonus: this idea was the birth of a new source of contention for the psychologists of the world! Empirically, I'd still argue that reprocessing trauma is healing in the absence of those mystical eye-tracking saccades. I'd also argue that EMDR is incredible. In the vein of Billy Collins as he tried to capture a sunrise,
I say things between sets, and my therapist wants to talk about them so much it's beaming from his face, but we have more trails to follow before it's time to process the session. So it continues. The thought then, during the abuse? "I deserve this." The thought I'd like to believe? "I am loveable." I'm tense, bracing. My toes curl, my muscles tighten, I clench my jaw. Another set. I see myself alone in a room, afraid. Another. I feel the pull to dissociate and feel this resolve swell up to say no, stay present. I hear the two diametrically opposed thoughts (I deserve this/I am loveable) repeating over and over and everything is chaotic. I'm self-conscious about telling anything I'm experiencing to my therapist. He asks me the right question: are either of the beliefs shifting, changing, getting stronger or weaker?
I'm quiet.
He lets me be quiet.
I notice the shift.
This idea that I am loveable? It's moving. The needle moved. Just a click. But I felt it.
We talked about what was happening, and my therapist could see it all from above. He fit the puzzle pieces together and took in the big picture. He gently laid it out for me - this rough translation, in words. He spoke calmly and clearly. He showed me how it made sense - my memories, and feelings, and the stuck places I found myself in lately. I was overwhelmed by all of it. I was exhausted from the emotional labor of EMDR. I was taking in this sweeping interpretation (which can be hard to come by in therapy). Chewing on it. At a loss for words. I think he wasn't sure I understood. He kept backing up - maybe he was misinterpreting? Maybe he experienced it differently? It was fine if that interpretation didn't resonate! He seemed unsure, almost apologetic for offering his take on all of it.
But it did resonate. It does.
I cried, and he offered his hand to hold. I held on because I needed something to hold on to. Someone to hold on to. I'm still not sure I could identify the feeling in that moment. It wasn't good or bad. It was everything, all at once. Relief, sadness, happiness, forgiveness, shame, fear, trust, love, gratitude. Something - everything? - falling into place.
Somehow, we were talking about the desired belief (I don't think this is the official EMDR name for it) - "I am loveable," and there was something off about it. It wasn't quite right. I didn't quite want it. We talked about other, similar beliefs - "I'm okay." "I'm good." But they weren't right either. My therapist was talking, and I was trying to catch this thought. Finally, I found it.
I am whole.
That's what I want to believe. I'm more than the things that people have done to me, I'm more than the mistakes I've made, I'm more than the accolades and accomplishments. I'm all of it. I'm whole, with all of it.
And, as if that weren't enough for one session, I realized that I am whole is the other half of It's not my fault. I was stuck in not my fault. That was the self-awareness dead-end I couldn't find my way out of. That was the place where I was angry because I couldn't have the Good Will Hunting moment, enveloped in relief at the heart-felt knowledge that the things other people did to me (specifically, the vanishing of my biological father and abuse of my step-father) were not my fault. It was just a line I crossed, being able to acknowledge that it was not my fault. I didn't know that not my fault only got me halfway there.
There is hope in I am whole.
Don't get too excited. I mean, I'm not there yet. The space between I'm loveable and I am whole is huge. It's the therapeutic equivalent of happening upon some fertile valley after an arduous hike up a mountain. Not everything is perfect, but there's space to grow here. So much breathing room, and clarity. Trust and gratitude for myself and my therapist, and really everyone. The anger fades. Peace is there.
I know it sounds a bit over the top. But finding this valley, working to find this valley, is deeply fulfilling and meaningful. Thank you for reading, sincerely.
We try with metaphor. We talk about the cracks where the light gets in, the kintsukuroi, the butterfly (if you're not familiar with my thoughts on the butterfly, I whinge about her here sometimes). But we can't really touch it. Unless you read Yalom every day or have had the good fortune to experience the deep work of psychotherapy, any attempts to verbally capture what happens are hollow shells of the felt experience. Yet, we try to capture it in words, as we try to capture the sky-fire at sunrise or the rolling constancy of the waves.
All that to say, what follows is an attempt to capture an ephemeral and transformative psychotherapy session. The one where we did Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which I know, I know, we were taught was no more effective than exposure therapy. I took the classes and analyzed the research too. And then I tried it, as the client, and it changed things.
I'll just jump right in here.
(I do this in therapy, too. This thing where I carefully set the stage and encourage minimal expectations and prevaricate before I say what's on my heart or mind. I used to beat myself up for it, but in this moment I find it sort of endearing.)
The first time I did EMDR was during that bleak and frigid winter where Jonathan was in the hospital and I was trying to hold it together whilst the foundation was disintegrating. (One of those "chess pieces aligning the wrong way" situations that we can all casually shrug off in retrospect.)
 |
| Misalignment of Chess Pieces Looks Like This |
I did EMDR because my therapist seemed strangely concerned in an early session when I nonchalantly mentioned something that someone did to me in my early teens.
Pause for a moment to notice the groundswell of #metoo. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable, to have women (and men) speaking out in a public space. Naming names. Maybe it strikes you as some sort of attention-seeking airing of dirty laundry, holding skeletons up for all to see? That's okay. We can all have feelings and opinions. But for me (not as a representative of women who have been abused, but just me), the movement is a beautiful and powerful reclaiming of strength. Who says I can't be free/ From all of the things that I used to be/ Rewrite my history/ Who says I can't be free? And as to why women (and men) are choosing to use social media as their platform right now? I resonate with what Lindy West wrote in her unapologetic piece for the New York Times.
I know you hate gossip and rumor mills, but unfortunately they’re the only recourse we have. We wish it were different too. In a just system, Weinstein would have faced career-ruining social and professional consequences the first time he changed into a bathrobe and begged a horrified woman for a massage. In a just system, the abuse wouldn’t have stayed an open secret for decades while he was left free to chew through generation after generation of starlets. Weinstein’s life, like Cosby’s, isn’t the story of some tragic, pitiable downfall. It’s the story of someone who got away with it.
The witches are coming, but not for your life. We’re coming for your legacy. The cost of being Harvey Weinstein is not getting to be Harvey Weinstein anymore. We don’t have the justice system on our side; we don’t have institutional power; we don’t have millions of dollars or the presidency; but we have our stories, and we’re going to keep telling them. Happy Halloween.
I don't feel the white-hot rage anymore, for reasons which will perhaps become more clear in the stories that follow. I'm not here to call out the person who molested me for a period of time in my early teens, though I'm aware that people who know me can suss it out on their own. I've alluded to it in passing before. But now, here, today, it's important to me to say that yes, the man who molested me was my step-father. I don't yearn to see his demise. I don't even wish him pain, though I used to. I used to be angry at so many people. And when I say "used to," I don't mean years ago when I was young and didn't know any better. I mean, like, last week. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So I mentioned these experiences to my therapist pretty early on, during those initial information-gathering sessions. It was curious, his reaction. Suddenly I thought it was, perhaps, a thing worthy of emotional response on my part? Crack that window just a bit and suddenly I'm feeling so much that I can't breathe.
... sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past. - Irvin Yalom
EMDR was captivating and mysterious. I didn't know the rules, so the incessant rattle of self-judgment (I need a gold star for therapy performance, natch) was muffled. I could hear myself think. I could chase thoughts in the silence. In that space, I opened to pain in the memories, and sadness, and shame. I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to say, so I said whatever I could fit into words. I wrote my step-father an email wherein I recounted the abuse and established a boundary. I felt the shamey things that people feel after other people hurt them in these ways.
Therapy marched on. The fissure in the dam seeped and pooled, and I fell through the water into the dark. Everything contracted. Everything expanded. The feelings were blinding bright. Everything was askew, a mess, chaotic. Then it would calm.
As I approached the fourth theraversary (anniversary of the first therapy session, which is totally normal to memorialize and not at all weird I'm not kidding), I was hyper-aware that I couldn't quantify the value-added of therapy in my life. I wondered whether the "work" I needed to do in therapy was to realize that by going to therapy I was only perpetuating my own problems. The way to win was, of course, to quit therapy.
Ever-interested in winning, of course, I did.
I'll blame a friend for nudging me toward framing the dramatic termination of therapy over this past summer as more of a therapy sabbatical. Seven weeks without therapy. In earnest, I read books and intentionally focused on engaging in study of self-compassion. I made some inroads there. Nothing major; as my friend's therapist says, "moving the needle just a little bit." With dedicated practice, I could get through a 10-minute lovingkindness meditation without weeping! There was self-compassion in the cracks.
We began again, in therapy. I don't know how my therapist felt, but I felt trepidation. I was ginger and stilted. I talked about having these gates in therapy, where everything I said had to pass through multiple gates before I said it. Was it worthwhile? Was it self-pitying? Would it move me forward? We talked about family and friends and love and attachment. One day, I decided to find these faux step-siblings I'd seen in an old photo album my father's sister gave me after my father died. My father was with a woman after he and mom split, and she had kids who he interacted with regularly for a pretty long span of their formative years. I found them. An hour later, my not-step-sister and I exchanged a string of messages while I tried to hang on to the world because it was spinning too fast. Turns out he didn't have a perfect family in a perfect parallel life (this was my greatest fear). Turns out he was an emotionally and physically abusive raging alcoholic who died overdosing in a cheap motel on the outskirts of Denver. But, she said, when he was sober he was so funny and so intelligent and witty. I didn't know that. I grieved for her, for her brother and her mom and for myself. For them, the pain of knowing what he was like. For me, the pain and simultaneous relief of not knowing him at all.
 |
| It's Mueller Time! (circa 1985) |
Every session, no matter which direction I decided we'd go, I ran into the same wall. This particular wall was nihilistic. I kept finding myself in this stuck place where I realized it was all well and good that I'd dexterously sorted the "not my fault" from the rest when sifting through all my experiences, all my parental relationships and histories. Well done, yes, but to what end? There's no changing the past. There's no replacing people from the past with people from the present. Nothing could change these truths. No amount of trust and consistency and esteem from my therapist could make him be my hero-father. Consequently, there was no hope.
I was angry at my therapist. I told him that, in many ways. (I don't tend to hide how I feel about my therapist from him, which I think is good for the therapy process but I do feel badly about it sometimes.) I was angry that he'd sold me on therapy only to get me to this enlightenment dead-end. I wrote and talked again and again about how futile therapy was (and therapy is sort of my career, so I was doubting everything). What is the point of self-awareness? Why wasn't there relief in this recognition of truth and complexity? I was angry at myself. I was angry at everyone. Despair crept in around the edges. Everything was heavy.
Whenever I closed my eyes, whenever my husband showed me affection, my step-father's hands were there. Why? I couldn't figure it out. It was hard to sleep. It was all too much. I thought we'd dealt with this. Why was it resurfacing?
My therapist gently suggested that perhaps when we did EMDR in 2013, I'd sort of excavated the first layer of the experience. I'd made progress in terms of being hesitantly willing to acknowledge it and admit that it was not my fault. (I wasn't sure whether I actually believed it wasn't my fault, but my logical brain understood as much.) So, we did EMDR again. It worked in a way that could be measured objectively. Intrusive thoughts and physical sensations associated with the molestation significantly reduced, sleep improved, mood improved. But I didn't want to get all puffed up with pride, so I told myself that EMDR was fine but nothing we needed to do again. Commence a three-week stretch of me just being, as the kids say, irritable AF. My therapist did the classic therapist wonder™, where he wondered aloud whether the anger I felt was lingering after the previous EMDR session... and maybe it'd like to get out?
I guess I could explain what I'm even talking about when I keep saying EMDR. There's really no way to make EMDR sound less weird than it is. Perhaps you'll consider the origin story. Zoom in on Francine Shapiro, walking home through the park after a long day at work. It's autumn, and Dr. Shapiro tracks the leaves as they blow back and forth. She feels calmer, tracking the blowing leaves and reflecting on her day, and eureka! she hypothesizes that moving one's eyes back and forth while holding in mind difficult thoughts and feelings can facilitate the neuroprocessing of trauma. Added bonus: this idea was the birth of a new source of contention for the psychologists of the world! Empirically, I'd still argue that reprocessing trauma is healing in the absence of those mystical eye-tracking saccades. I'd also argue that EMDR is incredible. In the vein of Billy Collins as he tried to capture a sunrise,
but the last thing I want to do
is risk losing your confidence
by appearing to lay it on too thick.
Let's just say that the morning light here
would bring to any person's mind
the rings of light that Dante
deploys in the final cantos of the ParadisoIt's sublime, what can happen. I don't have a clue what I'm doing when we do EMDR. I mean, yes, I'm sitting in a chair with a soft blanket in my lap. I keep my eyes on the center of my therapist's open palm as he moves his arm left and right, left and right, left and right. I hold memories and thoughts in mind. I identify a statement to summarize what I thought or felt then and a different statement about what I'd like to think or feel. This all swims around in my head during the eye-tracking sets. I'm taking a deep breath after each set, and sharing what I notice (thoughts, feelings, somatic sensations). I strain to find words to explain the thoughts and feelings. I have to speak in metaphor: "I feel like I'm on a merry-go-round, at that point where you're not sure whether you want to go any faster and you have to hold on. On the brink of spinning out, unsure of whether I like this feeling."
to convey the presence of God,
while bringing the Divine Comedy
to a stunning climax and leaving it at that.
I say things between sets, and my therapist wants to talk about them so much it's beaming from his face, but we have more trails to follow before it's time to process the session. So it continues. The thought then, during the abuse? "I deserve this." The thought I'd like to believe? "I am loveable." I'm tense, bracing. My toes curl, my muscles tighten, I clench my jaw. Another set. I see myself alone in a room, afraid. Another. I feel the pull to dissociate and feel this resolve swell up to say no, stay present. I hear the two diametrically opposed thoughts (I deserve this/I am loveable) repeating over and over and everything is chaotic. I'm self-conscious about telling anything I'm experiencing to my therapist. He asks me the right question: are either of the beliefs shifting, changing, getting stronger or weaker?
I'm quiet.
He lets me be quiet.
I notice the shift.
This idea that I am loveable? It's moving. The needle moved. Just a click. But I felt it.
We talked about what was happening, and my therapist could see it all from above. He fit the puzzle pieces together and took in the big picture. He gently laid it out for me - this rough translation, in words. He spoke calmly and clearly. He showed me how it made sense - my memories, and feelings, and the stuck places I found myself in lately. I was overwhelmed by all of it. I was exhausted from the emotional labor of EMDR. I was taking in this sweeping interpretation (which can be hard to come by in therapy). Chewing on it. At a loss for words. I think he wasn't sure I understood. He kept backing up - maybe he was misinterpreting? Maybe he experienced it differently? It was fine if that interpretation didn't resonate! He seemed unsure, almost apologetic for offering his take on all of it.
But it did resonate. It does.
I cried, and he offered his hand to hold. I held on because I needed something to hold on to. Someone to hold on to. I'm still not sure I could identify the feeling in that moment. It wasn't good or bad. It was everything, all at once. Relief, sadness, happiness, forgiveness, shame, fear, trust, love, gratitude. Something - everything? - falling into place.
Somehow, we were talking about the desired belief (I don't think this is the official EMDR name for it) - "I am loveable," and there was something off about it. It wasn't quite right. I didn't quite want it. We talked about other, similar beliefs - "I'm okay." "I'm good." But they weren't right either. My therapist was talking, and I was trying to catch this thought. Finally, I found it.
I am whole.
That's what I want to believe. I'm more than the things that people have done to me, I'm more than the mistakes I've made, I'm more than the accolades and accomplishments. I'm all of it. I'm whole, with all of it.
And, as if that weren't enough for one session, I realized that I am whole is the other half of It's not my fault. I was stuck in not my fault. That was the self-awareness dead-end I couldn't find my way out of. That was the place where I was angry because I couldn't have the Good Will Hunting moment, enveloped in relief at the heart-felt knowledge that the things other people did to me (specifically, the vanishing of my biological father and abuse of my step-father) were not my fault. It was just a line I crossed, being able to acknowledge that it was not my fault. I didn't know that not my fault only got me halfway there.
There is hope in I am whole.
Don't get too excited. I mean, I'm not there yet. The space between I'm loveable and I am whole is huge. It's the therapeutic equivalent of happening upon some fertile valley after an arduous hike up a mountain. Not everything is perfect, but there's space to grow here. So much breathing room, and clarity. Trust and gratitude for myself and my therapist, and really everyone. The anger fades. Peace is there.
I know it sounds a bit over the top. But finding this valley, working to find this valley, is deeply fulfilling and meaningful. Thank you for reading, sincerely.