EMDR Therapy
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale
EMDR Therapy
28
Floorboards creaked with each step as she walked down the long hallway from the back door to the front of the house. Aside from the groan of her footsteps, the rather enormous turn of the century house was still; eerie, as if the pandemic had created a vacuum seal and sucked the life out of it. A thick musty scent, one of Petra’s favorite fragrances, hung stagnant in the air.
“Definitely haunted,” she mused.
The first thing she noticed upon entering the therapist’s office was a comforting, 1970s hippie vibe. Starr, wearing a bohemian style tunic accented by a stunning Navajo squash blossom necklace, fit right in with the overstuffed couches and colorful, mirrored accent pillows. Her kind and welcoming face, wrinkled with seven decades of life experience, embodied the spirit of the grandmothers; of the wise old crone. No one in this office was putting on any airs.
Petra took in a deep breath, exhaled and relaxed, only to tense right back up when she saw it; an African tribal mask hanging on the wall. It gave her the willies.
Twelve-year-old Petra barged through her ever-weakening self-preservation shield.
“Ever notice that your life is a walking manifestation of conflicted emotions? No wonder everyone keeps diagnosing you with bipolar disorder.”
“Shut up!”
Not intending to waste any precious time, she told Starr, whose very name reflected the surroundings, everything she knew about living in Africa, her sister’s death and a sneaking suspicion that some form of sexual abuse had occurred in early childhood.
“I don’t have any concrete memories to support the story I just told you. All I know for certain is I lived in Liberia and my sister died there. What I do have are unpredictable, intrusive flashbacks. When they start, I hear and feel beating drums followed by sliver images of African tribes-people, their faces covered by frightening masks, dancing and chanting… A lot like that mask on your wall.”
“I can take it down if you like.”
“No, it’s okay. Maybe there’s a reason...”
Starr mapped out a plan of action to keep her safe and help her pull out of a memory if it got too intense. The procedure was familiar. Auntie Pat had used a similar method for guided meditations.
The two EMDR protocols she utilized were sight and sound. With sight, the client follows the practitioner’s hand as it moves back and forth from left to right. With sound, they wear a headset, enabling tones to travel from the left ear to the right.
“The back-and-forth motion bypasses hard-wired defense mechanisms, enabling you to access repressed memories,” said Starr. “Our goal is to target the oldest memory first, in the hope that reinterpreting a primary trauma will snowball through subsequent patterned repetitions and heal them as well.”
It took some time for Petra to settle into the rhythm as she followed Starr’s finger; back and forth, left to right. Reading distress on her face and a tightening in her limbs, she asked, “Where are you?”
“I’m lying on a platform in the middle of a tribal ceremony. I’m in my four-year-old body and standing off to the side, witnessing the event as an adult.”
“What do you feel?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m drugged. It’s like I’m on some sort of hallucinogen. No wonder everything seems so bizarre and otherworldly in my flashbacks. I hear drums, so many drums. They beat all around me and inside me. Staccato beats whirling like tops, faster and faster; my heart pounding, it explodes, ricochets off the walls and slams back into me, rattling my bones. The tribes-people move in rhythmic patterns all around me; their bodies elongating, dissolving, twisting, drifting in close and pulling far away. They wear oversized masks, animated, alive, each with its own strange personality.
The shaman moves in closer. He’s coming for me. His sweat smells like violent rage. It drips and plunks like a water faucet filling the hollow above my collarbone. Angry rivers of hate; overflowing, falling to the ground, rising in a chaotic flood of seething rage.
‘Kill him! The White Devil must die.’
In my ear, the Shaman’s hot breath whispers, ‘He is a rapist.’”
Petra pulled out of the memory and back into the room.
“What does he mean, ‘He is a rapist?’ Who is a rapist?”
“First things first,” said Starr. “Let’s get your breathing under control. Sit up straight…Both feet planted on the floor… That’s right. Breath in for a count of four… Good, now hold your breath for a count of seven…blow out all the air for a count of eight… Get it all out. Again, breath in for a count of four…hold for seven…release for eight.”
Starr had Petra repeat the cycle until her breathing pattern stabilized and her body relaxed.
“Why did they hate me so much? I mean, I was just a little girl!”
“It’s too soon to figure it out. I’ll say this: your intuition is spot on. You pulled out of the memory at the perfect time. If you hadn’t done it, I would have.”
Starr was a trauma informed specialist with thirty years of experience. She began her career in a psychiatric hospital, moved on to various rehabilitation centers treating substance use disorders, and worked for many years with returning soldiers diagnosed with PTSD. She had seen it all.
“Do you feel well enough to go home?”
“I’ll be fine. Just a bit unbalanced is all.”
“For the next week, try not to dwell on what you experienced. Your conscious mind doesn’t have a clue how to process it. Continue your meditation practice and if you feel anxious or frightened, use the breathing protocol I just taught you. It will stabilize your sympathetic nervous system. Call me anytime and if you need an emergency appointment, I will squeeze you in. Good work. Amazing work! I’ll see you next week.”
—
She went home and Googled “West African hallucinogenic drug used in ceremonies.” What she uncovered surprised her.
Indigenous people in West Africa ingest a drug called Ibogaine for healing and spiritual growth. It is used in ceremonies to bring unhealthy family systems into alignment by connecting with ancestral spirits. Many believe the plant medicine has the power to cleanse entire bloodlines.
At the following session, Petra brought Starr up to speed regarding her findings.
“I think I may have this all wrong. I didn’t want to mention it before, but I’ve been entertaining this idea that the local tribes-people ritually abused me when we lived in Liberia. According to the information I found, it looks more like they were trying to help me. Can I go back in with this new information?”
“Yes, but this time, I’d like you to use your body as a guide.”
For the session, Starr implemented the headset.
“Close your eyes and tell me where you feel discomfort in your body. Take your time…deep breathing…that’s good… Where in your body?”
She traced over her lower abdominal region with a flat open palm and grimaced.
“Tell me where you are. What do you see?”
“I’m lying on the bottom bunk in my bedroom. It’s not my regular bed. I sleep on the top bunk. I’m a big girl now. Anne’s up there. It’s not right…dangerous. She’s too little to be up there. What if she falls? Daddy brought me down here… This feels wrong. It hurts, but it also feels good... Why can’t I be back up in my bed?… What is happening?… I fixate on the upper bunk mattress, imagining my head on the pillow with the covers pulled up over me. There are no covers down here. I’m exposed, legs wide open… Please stop Daddy…please. I beg him inside my head. I can’t speak. There are no words.
A shadow passes behind the bedroom door, cracks it open…someone peeks in, pivots…tiptoes away. I see a flash of my nanny’s orange and yellow flower dress. Daddy moans with pleasure.”
Petra landed back in her body with a visible thump.
“Oh, my God! My father?”
Mortified, shaken, confused and embarrassed that she had shifted the blame onto the tribes-people, she looked to Starr for help.
“Why did I believe the Africans did it?”
“Don’t beat yourself up, it’s quite common. You’re not alone in imagining ritualistic sexual abuse. And in your case, there is an actual ritual that we don’t understand yet.
In the 1990s, we had a huge influx of patients all across America, claiming sexual abuse by Satanists. After years of working with the police, we discovered the real culprit was incest. You see, a young child can’t cope knowing that their protector, the person they depend on for life itself, is hurting them in such a profound way. They dissociate and then transfer any residual memory of the abuse onto imaginary perpetrators.“
Starr reassured her she would not have to re-live every molestation to move forward and heal. Petra, unnerved in uncomfortable and dizzying ways, attempted to assimilate the new information.
How could she have pretended that nothing was happening all these years?
The evidence was everywhere from the pornography he shared with her, to his insistence on walking around the house naked. It showed up in her behavior. She wet the bed, displayed signs of an over-active libido, and recoiled from any unsolicited touch. No wonder her own mother resented her; she had robbed her of the only power play she had.
Still, shouldn’t a mother protect her child from such things?
One would think, and yet countless children are in the same circumstance, or worse. It was all too much to bear.
—
During her next session, Petra had a heaviness in her chest. As she focused her attention and allowed herself to feel the pain, she descended into a memory.
“I’m alone with my sister. She’s stomping her feet and stringing together a stream of unintelligible demands; a typical two-year-old tantrum. Pointing at the glass jar of cookies on top of the china cabinet, she summons all her powers of concentration into a single demand.
“Cookie.”
She repeats it over and over; her face turning bright red.
“We can’t. Mom says, No.”
She throws herself onto the floor, crying.
“Okay, okay, okay…stop crying.”
I pull the dining room chair, sort of wiggle it… It’s heavy. There, I’ve got it next to the china cabinet. Now I’m standing on my tippy toes on top of the chair. I stretch my arms over my head and feel for the jar, inching it towards the edge. I get ahold of it without the container dropping or me toppling over. Holding it in my arms, a big smile of victory on my face, I climb down and place the jar between us.
We sit toe to toe with our legs spread wide. I take off the lid and hand her a cookie.
‘I’m the good mommy.’
She can have as many as she wants. One for her. One for me. She’s laughing. Complete, unadulterated joy.”
Starr observed Petra’s body language shift.
“Something’s wrong. My stomach hurts. Anne looks sick. She’s gagging.”
Petra pushes into her stomach. The color draining from her face.
“We’re in the half-bath. I’m sitting on my heels, trying to balance her on my thighs. She throws up in the toilet. I feel dizzy…cold sweat…I throw up too.
Feet shuffling and scurrying, hurried chatter. They pick us up and carry us to the car… We drive…
Nanny screams, ‘Faster, drive faster!… There they are. Pull over!’ Mom and Dad get in.’
Petra yanked off the headphones.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Shaken and sobbing, “I didn’t want it to be true. I was hoping it was all some sort of misunderstanding. A false memory. Someone else’s fault. I’m a murderer! Oh my God, I killed her. What am I supposed to do now?”
“First of all, and I know you’ve heard this before, no one can hold a four-year-old responsible,” said Starr. “It’s impossible. There was no intention of harm. Yes, you disobeyed your mother’s instruction, but, please, why weren’t those cookies hidden out of sight? Why place them on display like that? The whole thing is maddening.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but I swear, it’s not enough. It’s never been enough. What’s it going to take to get out from under the weight of this thing?”
“You’ll need to go back in as many times as it takes for your brain to sort it out. Trust me, your mind wants to heal, and it knows what to do. Are you okay until the next session?”
“Yes, but I have to ask… Is this real?”
“You are accessing memories from underneath your conscious psychological defenses. So, yes, the memories are genuine. EMDR and meditation remove us from the external world of our five senses and draw us inward. Learning to use the power of our imagination and the heart’s natural inclination toward harmony and balance, we can restructure our self-concept. Keep doing what you’re doing. Allow your intuition to show you the way. Trust it.”
Petra contemplated the now irrefutable information. She meditated and asked for peace. From an intellectual standpoint, she knew Starr was right. No one would ever hold a four-year-old child responsible. And yet, she continued to carry the full emotional weight of Anne’s death. She felt like an accused witch being suffocated by the villagers as they piled stones on top of her body.
Why was that?
Waiting for her next appointment, she gave herself a much needed emotional reprieve and self-medicated with Netflix binges and her favorite snacks.
The following session took her into the hospital.
“I’m in the waiting room. The doctor says I’m okay. I can go home. Nanny takes me to say goodbye to my mom. She’s hovering over Anne, who is in a bathtub full of ice.
‘Oh, my God,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you ever listen? I told you, never, never, never eat those cookies.’
Whisking me away, Nanny says, ‘Donht you lihstihn to hihrr. iI's nawht your faulht.’
Days of waiting. Long, quiet, breath-holding, sad, still days. Only the clock ticks…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock. Nanny is my constant companion. On my parents’ return, Mom breezes right past me, waving her hand in a flippant gesture.
‘Pack her suitcase. She’s leaving today.’
I don’t understand what’s happening. Where is Anne? Why isn’t my mom looking at me? Nanny places a tiny suitcase on the bottom bunk bed and motions for me to sit down next to it.
As she packs, she says, ‘Anne is nawht comihng home. She wihnht to slihep, and she is nawht guhna wake up. You aře goihng awn an aihřplane. You aře guhna vihsiht your gřandmothihrr.”
My mother is holding my hand way too tight. In the other she carries my suitcase. She drags me toward the front door. I turn and call out to Nanny.
‘Nanah, come with me.’
She shakes her head, no. I struggle to get free and run back to her. My mother picks me up and hands me over to my father, who clutches me in his arms. I struggle with all my might to get free. I scream for Nanny to come, but I’m not calling her Nanny.
‘Mama, come. Please, Mama, come with me!’
I catch the look on my mother’s face, a look of offense, disgust and hatred.”
—
That look, and all the emotions surrounding it, became a single snapshot seared into her young brain. The image created a lens that colored all future interactions between Petra and her mother. In an instant, she became forever and always a disloyal, disposable, and worthless burden.
—
“I’m holding the flight attendant’s hand, heading toward the gate. I glance back. My father offers a small wave, a grimace on his face. My mother, disinterested, only her backside visible, is three strides into her departure.
As I watch my mother walk away, my father shakes his head and mouths the words, “I love you.”
—
The months following her sister’s death cemented Petra’s separation from her mother and from herself. Anne had fallen off the face of the earth and no one explained anything. There was a constant barrage of passive-aggressive and full-on aggressive comments, eluding to Petra’s guilt in the matter. At best, her parents tolerated her; mostly, they ignored her. The everyday conditions became too painful, and she did what everyone wanted her to do. She swallowed the entire incident whole.
Deciding to forget, having learned a thing or two by watching Raymond and Lou, she eradicated her life with Anne and died alongside her. She deposited her joy and spontaneity in an illusory makeshift grave. Stepping out of her previous life as a loving sister, she stepped into a new life as an only child.
Over the next several weeks, Starr made some startling observations. First was the discovery that Petra had three distinct younger selves. She avoided any talk of multiple personality disorder or its newest classification, dissociative identity disorder. In her opinion, this was a case where unresolved trauma had caused a survival-based psychic splintering.
It appeared as if her youngest self, Victorianna, (who had identified herself during a guided meditation with Auntie Pat) disappeared on or around age four, due to the death of her sister Anne and all the surrounding complications.
Simone, who appeared to be six-years old, was the part of her that endured the bulk of the sexual abuse from her father and the emotional and physical abuses of her mother.
Petra, a rebellious middle-schooler, emerged around age twelve. She became her addict self, a part who used alcohol and drugs to discard both of her younger selves and throw away the key.
“I think we should look into Victorianna’s disappearance next session,” said Starr.
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A harrowing tale, shot through with unlikely humor and fantastical creatures.
This autofiction (autobiography and fiction) novel revolves around a lifetime spent underwater struggling to find the surface. The narrative follows the journey of an unlikely heroine from the bondage of childhood trauma to self-awareness and freedom.
It is a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success that finishes with a big Hollywood ending.