So, I'm sitting in what feels like my 900th session of EMDR therapy today working through another extremely traumatic memory of abuse when I had a light bulb moment. I’m bringing my epiphany to this audience in case it helps make sense of things for someone else. When trauma survivors have a triggering event or a flashback, the effects can be debilitating or paralyzing. Thankfully, we eventually come to the realization that we are in our “now” and not in our past, and we are able to recognize what we’re feeling is just a memory.
For me, in the worst of times, it feels like the trigger never “untriggifies”. The hours and days that follow feel like I am walking around in a haze trying to forget the thing that is consuming me while functioning as a rational adult, mother and wife at the same time. The haze is real and it is hard. It hunches me over and darkens me. But the question is why? If the actual triggering event was yesterday, or last week, why am I still feeling the emotional and physical effects? What is this haze and why doesn’t it stop when the flashback stops? Why is there this haunting hangover effect?
My lightbulb moment came from my therapist today. She explained that the processing that happens in our minds, after a flashback, doesn’t stop when the panic stops - our brains don’t pivot on a dime like that. She explained the haze is my brain continuing to process the memory over time and it can continue throughout the days that follow the flashback event. The reason I am so tired during the haze is because MY MIND HASN’T STOPPED WORKING since the flashback happened. (Add to that trying to appear and sound like I'm ok to the rest of the outside world and carry on, however unsuccessfully, my wifely and motherly duties - AND be a leader in the workplace). This process of processing can take a little while after each triggering episode; so too can feeling whole and normal again. Even in the moments that aren’t consumed by panic and fear, the processing is ever-present. In the haze, I never fully escape the new or repeat traumatic memory that has surfaced – it only wanes as time goes on and as I intentionally work through it with a professional.
My therapist went on to describe that the haze is also the exhaustion that I feel after a tough EMDR session. This made so much sense to me, because often, when the sessions are particularly hard or have uncovered something new or raw, all my body and mind want to do is rest and sleep. These sessions can feel torturous at times, but they’ve been the only thing that provide me equally dramatic positive outcomes. I’ve chosen EMDR therapy for the moments in which the haze lifts and normalcy pokes through. Until then, the walking continues. You see me out and about walking mostly upright with this thing on my shoulders. I wanted to say, fellow survivors, that I see you too and keep walking.
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