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EMDR is a therapy process that focuses on changing the emotions we feel around the traumatic events of our lives, AKA our triggers. Per my therapist, it is particularly good at helping folks cope with post-traumatic stress events (PTSD). I have been in talk therapy before, for over seven years, and while it helped me stabilize the current crisis I was dealing with back then — it did not change the underlying way I interacted with my world.
EMDR is helping me unravel the events that led me to the place I am now. But even more than that, it’s teaching me how to balance the traumas of my past with healing in my now. Science has figured out that our brains tell us stories about All. The. Things. that happen to us. And while we are down in it — experiencing the trauma — memories may not get stored accurately. Later in life, we find ourselves over or under-reacting to events that our brain recognizes as trauma.
Even if it isn’t really trauma.
I think the best way to explain this comes from our recent election cycle. Do you remember the election? The one where we all voted our fears? As a woman and rape survivor, everything the GOP stands for triggers me. Deeply. I have friends who are just as…
