First session of EMDR.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming. PTSD Therapy.
In theory, your emotion processes things during REM sleep. Except if it's too traumatic, it just blocks it and you never really process it. This treatment suckers your emotions into thinking you're in REM, and through some leading questions by the therapist, you just talk through the feelings you had at certain times in a calm and safe environment, and your emotions feel calm enough to unpack it, process it, and let it go. At least that's how I understand it.
Psychotherapist suggested taking a couple hours after just to process before going to any appointments or anything. I have enough sick days, I just took the day off.
I held two sort of handles in my hands, that would vibrate alternatingly between each hand. Also watched a simple dot of light move back and forth on a screen (makes my eyes move like in REM). I'm fully awake and alert through the whole thing.
Therapist asked me to think of a time where I felt safe, comfortable, preferably something unassociated with sadness. I thought of a spot up in a forest (border of Alaska, where I lived as a kid) that I enjoyed, though it was also a spot I went to once when my parents were fighting violently (moreso my mom being violent; pops never hit back), and my dad found me and we just sat and hugged. I was probably 9 or 10. Don't know how he found me, or if he, too, was just trying to get away, I don't know. Anyways, that was the spot that was "comfort" for me.
Then with limited guidance, I just talked about how I felt in some times of some of the traumas in my life. I talked about some of my childhood, some of my first marriage, there was some tears, some anger, some grief, but I just talked about how I felt. Throughout, my emotions would go deep until I guess my emotions would say "that's enough" and I would switch to less painful (sometimes connected) stories, and then dip back into some hurtful experience again.
I've talked out the poo storm of life with close friends and limited family members in the past, and while talking it out lightens some of the burden, I was not expecting the result of just this one hour session:
After the session (started 8am), I just sat in my car in the parkinglot with my eyes closed for about 15minutes just trying to process it all. I drove home and went for an hour and a half walk in solitude and quiet (I live out near lots of orchards and farms), then napped for two and a half hours. I was in bed that evening by 8:30.
The next day, I was still trying to figure out my headspace. I wasn't sure how I was doing, it was like I had a completely different space in my head that I hadn't figured out yet. Not unsettling, but not exactly comfortable either. A very different end result than just talking it out with a friend over a pint.
The following day, I was certainly a bit less bothered by E36 M3 at work. Less bothered, but not gone.
I have four more sessions this month (one per week). I'll keep you abreast of how it goes.