Did I just wrestle my mattress into a tent thing at 530am

Yes

Holy crap I feel like my brain is finally relaxing?!

It's now on the bed and holy crap just laying in it feels so nice. I should have done this forever ago.

Having demand avoidance in a medical setting is literally hell. Like, patient autonomy is already absolute ass. It's only made worse when doctors CONSISTENTLY tell you what to do and act like you HAVE to do it instead of consulting with you first like normal fucking people.

Hey anyone, got long covid? Did it make u unable to use bathroom? Did u fix it, and how. Please let me know.

Some weeks you show up to therapy and feel like you’re twiddling your thumbs

And then sometimes there will be a week where your session is productive 😐

Today was productive

.

debrief time:

this session honestly went really well. i started at low distress, and brought the memory down to basically 0.

unfortunately, emdr has the very smart statement called "if it's not zero, it's not zero, and if you can still feel it in your body, it's not zero."

so it's not zero.

it's hard to tell what's going on in my head. things were going OK and the distress was going down, and then i noticed my thinking had gone back to, "this is unfair to [the child]" instead of "this was unfair to me." which is...depersonalization? but i don't know what to make of it. i think i was more focused on distress going down to notice there was a lot more static in the memory. it's tricky because the memory's distress has gone down, but also it was, well, staticky.

then at the end, she asked me whether a positive belief felt true, and despite my distress being low, it didn't. interestingly, this whole memory has been in my chest (that's where all my distress-pain is concentrated tbh), only it was my Stomach saying, "no, this isn't true."

i'm going to put the rest of this under a cut, because i want to talk a little about the memory itself to see if i can work parts of this out. cw for child abuse.

so the memory i'm working on has to do with some spelling tests i did for many, many years. i did not used to do well on them, and i don't really want to write the whole thing out. which in and of itself: i'm afraid that thinking too hard will bring all of the emotions back. which is...not where i'm supposed to be.

i'm pretty sure i'm going to end up emailing my therapist about all of this later, fwiw. looking back...i'm not sure if the distress was/is really gone, or if i was just dissociating, or if it's a combo of both. i didn't do my usual prep work before the session (because of the rush this morning), which means i was definitely...the only part present. which isn't great for this sort of thing.

but anyway. the positive statement is "i am good enough as i am." (or, kind of? i'm simplifying.)

we've been working on this memory for...three sessions now? that sounds right, three sessions. so like, i'm trying to be patient and not rush, but i want to be done with this. (another red flag to me in thinking-mode. one downside of emdr for me is that less talking means i really have to unpack things after sometimes, because i just don't get there in session. this isn't the worst thing in the world, it's just a comment.)

anyway, she said it, and i had...urgh, it's the funky split emotion. that's true, and it was basically what i was saying as we did the bilateral stimulation, but i couldn't ignore the pit in my stomach saying it wasn't true, and i could've done better, if only i tried harder/figured out the trick/i was capable of doing better.

i said it felt like a 5, but honestly, it felt like 7 and 2 at the same time. i still struggle with answering emdr things because sometimes it's "i think that's a 7 but there's a voice in my head saying it's a 1"

i just...i'm annoyed. and emdr has, like, it's structured to not let me move on when i'm not ready. which is a good thing. because as much as i feel like i'm done with this, i can see that i'm not. (i called that paradoxical understanding pseudo–self-awareness in therapy monday, which i think is a good term for it.) but it's frustrating to me.

i think a lot of this is dissociation. i don't want to reflect on why it doesn't feel true, i don't want to get too close, it sucks that this happened to [the child] but why should it bother me?

...i wish i had therapy in a few days like normal to talk through this.

i did some scrolling thru my therapy tag hoping it would have some insights. i should do a good long read through of my posts sometimes, just to see what i notice, but i did see my last emdr session i was frustrated about being stuck.

which she did say, we started this session with something to get me unstuck that did not at all work, and i'm not surprised that it didn't. looking it up, it looks like she either forgot to explain something, or i misunderstood, so that makes sense that it didn't help. but i don't know if it would've worked anyway. i'm really averse to mixing positive and negative experiences.

but i think, like...it's funny. uhh a quote from a different post about this:

God, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good session when I woke up this morning. This isn’t my memory to work on. I’m stuck in the same inner conflict I used to be, only everyone else has moved on from this moment.

2022-07-08

which is one thing i've talked about a bit, how i can say something contradictory like that and not even acknowledge it. "this isn't my memory" followed immediately by "i am a party to this internal conflict."

i know the part who wrote that post, and i don't think it's a coincidence i can't feel her at all right now.

I think I’m just stuck in the emotions of the past. I’m frustrated with myself for everything. For all of the wild emotions. For being unable to quiet them, then and now. For not being able to access the memory I needed to. It’s all the same anxious frustrated mess I’m familiar with.

and she's still stuck in the past set of memories, so i guess it's not surprising to me that i'm in an awkward position of having processed my part, and feeling no distress, only to be held back by a different part.

i should probably write about this to my emdr therapist, something which...well, i don't usually contact therapists outside of sessions. at all. i'm not one for it. but i think once i've sat with this all a bit more, i should email her, because...if i understand things right, i apparently jumped down a huge level of distress, but i don't think it was "true." like, it's complicated.

fuck.

i really, really, really want to be done with this memory. i am so goddamn tired of picturing myself standing by the couch and reciting the words i got wrong. i am so tired of thinking about the internal conflict that used to tear me apart. i am so goddamn done.

but i don't get to pick the speed healing happens at.

Yknow, if I could just

Not have severe pms issues while also planning how to take a really big step in my healing journey that terrifies the shit out of me

That would be fantastic

Unfortunately I am not so lucky

So while I'm trying to prep and plan for EMDR Therapy, a thing I want because I'm tired of shit like *Nice Weather* and my sister getting snappy triggering me to the point of constant dissociation and depersonalization, but is also DEEPLY terrifying to me because there's so so many walls between the system and our trauma and the idea of opening that overstuffed hidden closet in any way makes us want to run the opposite direction

I'm also dealing with the entire negative spectrum of human emotions, my sciatica making walking hard(thanks back cramps!), hormonal exhaustion on top of my normal exhaustion, and sensory hell.

Guess it's time to watch my fave tragedy and find a way to keep from going stir crazy.

Grief with EMDR Therapy In Oakland Park, FL

Navigating Grief with EMDR Therapy: A Journey to Healing

I was afraid of attaching to anyone because I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable to the pain of losing them if they died.

It’s hard to focus on hope amidst the waves of sorrow, and the last thing I wanted to hear was that I needed to be strong and I would get through it. Losing a loved one can feel like your world is imploding with a meteor of emotions.

However, if the grief is emotionally and physically overwhelming and preventing you from functioning, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) just might be the guiding light you need to pass through the dark path of grief.

Grieving with Grace

Grief is a natural response to loss and a testament to the legacy of the love shared with those who are no longer physically with us, it’s also an incredibly painful complex individual experience. Five back-to-back losses were way more than I bargained for; I couldn’t seem to get a break from mourning, and grief had become a frequent path of mine. I started to feel like I was stuck in a pit of darkness with no way out. At times, every memory, every thought, and every feeling left me feeling crippled, helpless and fatigued. I couldn’t just get over it, I knew I needed to give myself grace, be patient, and allow my grief the space it needed to unfold.

Finding Light in the Darkness

Amidst the darkness of grief, I decided to practice what I preach, I decided to seek safe non-judgmental support. I did a significant amount of work with myself but felt stuck and needed another professional to support me in processing the unconscious blocks that were still lingering. I opted to do EMDR as I had much success in using it to process grief in the past. EMDR was developed to treat trauma and has shown remarkable results in helping individuals process various forms of emotional distress, including grief.

EMDR consists of bilateral stimulation typically through eye movements, tapping, or sounds, to facilitate the brain’s natural healing process.

My EMDR Experience

Although I was hopeful, I was nervous because I knew that this work would be emotionally taxing. Furthermore, I was starting with a new therapist which means that my nervous system needed to feel safe in his presence even before starting the work. My high tolerance for distress helped me to move through the preliminary prep work into the processing and desensitization phases fairly quickly.

I was guided to recall specific memories associated with my loved ones’ passing while simultaneously engaging in bilateral stimulation. At first, it felt like I was confronting “the boogie man” within me, and it felt like a tornado was erupting all the emotions I had been suppressing inside my gut. Facing my emotions and my unconscious thoughts often left me sobbing. As the sessions progressed, I noticed subtle shifts within me. The feelings of helplessness, guilt, and overwhelming fear of losing loved ones diminished. I was intentional about implementing self-soothing strategies and resting after each EMDR session.

Unpacking Grief

I must say that all the discomfort was worth it because I am worth it, I deserve the peace that allows me to have joy, healthy attachments, and fond memories of my beloveds without distress. EMDR helped me untangle the knots of grief that ensnared my heart. With each session, I found myself gradually releasing distorted beliefs and making peace with the reality of loss.

Memories that once triggered avoidance and overwhelming sadness became bittersweet reminders of the love I held for my dear loved ones. It was as if EMDR gave me a gentle hand to navigate my way out of the pit of darkness I was stuck in.

Embracing Healing and Hope

As I reflect on my journey with EMDR, I feel deep gratitude that I can think of my loved ones without feeling survivor’s guilt, and I can reflect on fond memories without feeling like a tornado is erupting in my gut. The pain of loss will never fully dissipate, however, EMDR has equipped me with the tools to carry it with grace and resilience. As I said in the beginning, I have experienced multiple losses and I am still exploring and processing various aspects that are painful. Each session feels like a stepping stone along my path of healing and is a testament to my resilience.

Your Path to Healing

If you are carrying the weight of grief, have crying spells, or days when you don’t feel like getting out of bed or even doing life, know that you’re not alone. You too deserve support, doing the work is worth it, you are worth it, and you deserve peace. Consider exploring EMDR as a means to navigate your journey through grief and healing.

Give yourself permission to get support, there is a light that awaits beyond the shadows of sorrow. Until next time, focus on what you can do and be kind to yourself because you deserve it!

Click for our list of services.

About Us

We offer individual, family, couples and group counseling.

Our Vision is to normalize trauma, anxiety, depression, PTSD and other mental health disorders as the body’s way of communicating distress, and help our clients heal by teaching them how to tap into their bodies organic intelligence."

Our Services

At Emergent Counseling & Consulting LLC, services are person-centered, culturally sensitive, stigma-free, holistic and strengths-based.

Our services are tailored to meet your needs and help you develop the skills needed to get rid of anxiety and depression, and enhance your quality of life. Our methods are non-invasive, short-term evidenced-based techniques such as Brainspotting, and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT Tapping), which simple and focused on reducing the intensity of distress associated with anxiety and depression.

Call : 954 533 4828

Email : [email protected]

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so basically after realizing the problems I looked up crisis services and ways to get therapy and should have a couple options (either have a student as a therapist or get referred out), and in the meantime I'm going to use some workbooks on dbt/cbt, meditation, treatment planning, and emdr and go from there

I should be able to get psychiatry sorted out in the next couple months; what I'm dreading is needing to bump up a dose or go on a new medication unsupervised (psychiatrist only rather than psychiatrist + therapist) because I'm unsupervised by a therapist

all the while I'm trying to figure out the dentist, my name change, and new doctor prep :| and everything else

but I've calmed down some and I'm going to rest for tomorrow where I need to go out to the post office and to pick up my testosterone

I'm so fucking scared of starting EMDR. To prep for it I made a timeline of my life with my therapist and it was incredibly hard and I spent days stuck in the past. And I think I'll have a terrible EMDR hangover and no ways to manage and my professional support system is shit when I'm in crisis. They can help with practical things but for me it's mostly emotional and they're basically useless at helping me.

I don't know how to deal with flashbacks. Mostly I tend to feel like I'm back there again but unable to connect with the 'reality' that my life is just not the same rn. But it completely stops me in my tracks, I get physically stuck and struggle to complete chores and plan so taking care of myself (laundry, making food, getting groceries) is nigh impossible. Professional support system can't help and usually response shittily when I'm stuck and crying hysterically and only make it worse and make the episode last longer.

Idk how I'm supposed to cope with the post-EMDR fallout and I don't trust staff to help me enough for it to be safe and to help me adequately enough for me not to self harm.

therapist: ok we're gonna do this questionnaire thing and that'll prep us for our MDR work (its like emdr but like im not in office so i dont think we use the eyeball motions. anyway). and it'll give us a good baseline as to if we're good to start this work or if we need more time for building resources

me: ok great sounds good :)

therapist: have you ever felt like you're missing large chunks of your memory after the age of five.

me:

Friday 4/7/23

4th negative covid test. Still feeling unwell. 

1PM -- Bonnell session. EMDR prep. Childhood trauma?

2:30 -- Schlem chat. Lounging at home.

5 -- Barge Drills.

6 -- Dinner. Tater tots. Rotisserie chicken, Wegmans. 

5th negative covid test. 

8:53 -- Call Cortini. Go over dates.

Tunes w/Mick. 

Perfect pitch on my mind. 

11 -- Fall asleep, YouTubing.

3:30 AM -- Up 

100 Days of productivity (18/100) 01/7/23

A busy end to a productive af first week of the year, sometimes I’ve felt behind and like I’ve already made so many mistakes! (I have and that’s ok)

Things I’ve done:

Did intermittent 16:8 fast sessions for 2 days! Gonna take a mini break over weekend and try to push beyond

Finished thumbnailing the scene I’ve been working on

Accompanied wife to pharmacy

Read all my books

Did Japanese and Spanish practice

Worked out 60 min

Uploaded 2 tiktoks, put more footage in drafts

Uploaded old art

Retroboarded a scene from avatar and frozen

Sorted my insurance with emdr and submitted a bunch of documents for patient authorization. Read up in the subreddit, very eager to see it help me confront stuff

Made decent meal for myself and wife despite being on last few things left in freezer

Started the Rose of Versailles… So weird but i love it for obvious reasons

Practiced a lil ukulele and wrote a song

Helped my wife through a lil crisis over water spilt on a switch instead of reacting to the heated moment it caused! No escalation or drama!

Got food from mother in law… pozole 🥰🥰

To do

Break from work over weekend, focus on working out and self care, eat what you can to empty pantry

Plan healthy food plan for next month w macros in mind and care for cholesterol

Keep eye out for story gigs

Prep for next week

Clean gecko tank

Where have I been? What am I doing?

Is anyone else getting the feeling that to live Life the way it's advertised by that mysterious, ubiquitous force (Capitalism?) means to be exploited at every turn? As of last week, I turned 22 years old and during my brief duration of adulthood, I have had to: fight employers to pay me (at all, let alone on time); to be given tips I earned; to be given a schedule further than twelve hours in advance so I can have a life outside of work; for respect when I refused to work excessive amounts of overtime or provide unpaid labour; write university exams while incredibly ill because only death of yourself or family were excusable offences; lie to professors, employers, and toxic friends about physical injuries because lacking the mental and emotional capacity to give them my time and energy was not a healthy boundary, but rather an act of neglect to them and our relationship; I have been denied access to trauma trained counsellors because their costs were not covered by insurance; I have been cut off in the middle of EMDR therapy work because my free sessions ran out. I have had panic attacks and breakdowns in front of professors; the combined result of working multiple jobs, undesired fasting as part of the #starvingstudent lifestyle, a workload that is impossible to accomplish each week (believe me, I did the math), and being isolated in my house because of a pandemic tearing through the world- yet still working my retail job just to get yelled at by anti-maskers about a policy made by some politician whose name I do not know. All for the professor to respond to my plea for a single-day extension with “That wouldn’t be fair to anyone else. The real world does not stop demanding your energy when things get tough, so in the long run, I would not be doing you any favours anyway.” If this is how the real world operates, why am I trying to integrate myself into it? It seems like a horrible place where I can never get the rest I need, where any rest I choose to give myself is interrupted by guilt and self-loathing because That Girl does not rest. She gets up at 5 am, does an intense glute workout, packs her healthy meal prepped lunch and dinner, works for 16 hours straight, does her very serious skincare routine, then journals and breathes the stress away, and sleeps for 30 minutes before it’s time to start up again. Rest? What am I thinking, haven’t I been told and treated by everyone and every institution around me that I am a machine designed to keep giving more and more without ever needing to be restocked or recharged? Did I think I was a living, breathing organism? I am spiralling now, but you get my point. If this is how human beings are supposed to live (miserably), then what is the point? 

I want to be free of these relationships. I want to be respected by my employers, paid a livable wage, and have my mental well-being cared for in addition to my physical health at my workplace. When I need a day to rest, I want to be able to say “Hey, I’m exhausted and my body is telling me I need to take a break” and be met with understanding. I do not want to go to school, get a good job, work and work and work until I have saved up enough to retire just to have my body and mind so beaten up from years of labour that doing the things I have dreamed of are not possible anymore. Rather, my priority is finding a decent condo with an elevator because I can’t walk too many stairs. 

I know I cannot be the only person thinking this. I cannot be the only person terrified that this is what Life is. I cannot be the only one wondering if there is anything I can do about it. I cannot be the only one scared that if I step back and try to live my life in a way that allows no one to take advantage of me and gives me rest and time to do what makes me happy, I’ll end up deep in debt, living paycheque to paycheque, or an old woman living in a dirty lonely retirement home because it’s all I can afford. I am so afraid of saying no to this lifestyle that takes and takes from me but gives nothing in return. I am so scared of living a life of constant exhaustion and longing for advancement in career, relationship, or education hoping it will get me to that position where I can enjoy life. I am terrified of dying young because my lifestyle beat me up, body and soul, to a pulp. So, what do we do? Due to circumstances out of our control, most of us are born into a position where living a life of sustenance is a gamble. 

It is December 2022. This post follows four years of burnout completing my Bachelor's degree and multiple unfulfilling jobs with employers who would rather not pay me for my time. I have decided that I am more important than my job, my degree, or my to-do list. I will not continue to lose myself to these things. This blog will serve as my journal of sorts in cataloging what these sentiments mean in action and what I do and learn as I go along. I hope to hear from anyone else having their own existential crisis out in the world. What have you lost yourself too? What do you worry you will lose in choosing your happiness and well-being over whatever obstacle is blocking you? Where have you been?

im being prepped in therapy for emdr and o boy if i did not cry every day BEFORE

Well, I was going to do a coffee date post this morning. . .but life happened and kept happening, so now it’s after 3:00, but let’s still pretend we’re having coffee and that it’s a nice peaceful morning. That sounds lovely, right?

B got up at 5:30 this morning, so it’s a two nap day, and I am SO GRATEFUL. I’ve been busy cleaning and prepping for the trip and even snuck in a workout, but during nap #2 I am giving myself full permission to do NOTHING productive at all! Glorious!

I just sent an email to one of our local yoga studios that offers a six month, 200 hour yoga teacher training from January-June. The classes are Wednesday and Friday nights from 6-10pm. My classes next semester are all on Monday, so it seems like it could potentially work with my life. I just wanted to know what precautions are in place if the class is still meeting in person and how much time I should realistically expect to be spending on assignments outside of class time if I do this because I definitely don’t want to be completely overwhelmed. Fingers crossed it ends up being a good fit! I would love to be certified before I start my internship next January. And, if I am certified in June, I could take the Veterans Yoga Project training and the extra 50 hour Trauma training prior to my internship! I also read that you can attend EMDR training as a graduate student! I’m hoping my internship placement will let me do that and use it if I’m willing to pay for it myself. I mean. . .unless they’re going to pay for it, but I highly doubt that!

I am SO EXCITED to leave for the cabin tomorrow. It’s been empty for the entire week prior to our arrival, so that’s nice to know, too! Hopefully, any potential germs have died!!!!! And, the owner said we were welcome to check in as early as we’d like (check in is officially not until 3, so that is AWESOME! I sent the husband to pick out a good bottle of wine for us to enjoy in the hot tub while we’re stargazing. So. So. Ready.