A new chapter & the side effects of therapy
Hello, friend ♡
It’s been a while and I hope you’re doing well! When I started writing the draft for this post over a month ago, life looked quite different.
I wrote about how I’ve been completely exhausted ever since continuing EMDR therapy:
“Over the summer, when we were taking a break, I regained my normal energy levels and was back to my relatively productive self. But immediately following that first session after getting back, it was like being hit by the exhaustion train.
I mean, it makes sense, considering how intense that kind of therapy is. And now that we (by which I mean me and my therapist, Elin) have been doing this work for so long, we’re long past the surface level, obvious trauma stuff - with every session, we’re getting deeper, further back in time to those fundamental episodes and patterns that shaped you when you were very young.
The thing is that actively being in therapy is incredibly exhausting. I’ve mentioned a few times how EMDR rearranges your brain and basically throws the puzzle pieces of who you are into the air and you have to wait for the pieces to land again, but they land in a way that creates a whole new image, and it’s better - it’s good - but living in this state of constant change and unfamiliarity is intense.
And you have all these feelings that need to be released, so you cry, and you laugh, and you yell, and when it’s out you do feel better, but you also feel tired.”
I also wrote about how we might be done soon, at least for now, and that it is a scary but also exhilarating time:
“I think this chapter is coming to a close. It feels like therapy, especially EMDR, has done all that it can do for me (and it has certainly done a lot!). But my inner voice is saying that it’s time to stand on my own two feet now. See what it’s like to just exist and be a person without thinking of myself as being “under construction”. It really feels like continuing (at least right now) would be a form of avoidance, procrastination. Because I’m probably as ready as I’ll ever be, but there is always that tendency in us to want to wait longer, to really make sure we’re ready.
But something I’ve learned this year is that this is what being ready feels like. If you think “I could probably do it, I think it would be fine” - that’s it! You’re ready! The rest of that “sure” feeling comes after you do the thing, when you’ve proven to yourself that you could indeed do it and it was indeed fine.”
Since then, I went through a break-up with the person I thought I was going to marry. I had my last therapy sessions, including some deeply productive rounds of EMDR that really illuminated the remaining confusion I had about my past. I’ve spent more time than I have in years, or maybe ever, connecting with family, friends, and strangers.
Something unlocked in me, because it was time. Because it had to happen.
When one chapter comes to a close and another begins, we don’t need to panic. What we need to do is surrender. (I talked about this a bit in my most recent instagram post, if you’d like to go and read that :))
In surrendering, we let go of trying to control what we never could anyway, and we take back control over ourselves. This can be really scary, but proving to yourself that all the safety (which is what control is really about) you need is within yourself, is more powerful than you’d think.
A side effect of therapy that I personally never anticipated (because I didn’t really think EMDR would work for me in the first place, lol) is that you keep being surprised at who you are now.
If you’ve ever lost any significant amount of weight, you know this feeling. You keep being surprised at what you see in the mirror. Some days you barely recognize yourself. Other days you feel like nothing ever changed. You recognize your progress, know that you do things very differently than previous versions of you would. But some days you fall back into old, familiar patterns. It rarely gets as bad as it used to, and you pick yourself up again and return to your new routines with more ease every time. You witness yourself make choices that the old you wouldn’t, and you think “huh, is this who I am now?”
This can last for months, or even years.
Our brains take a long time to catch up, and in the meantime, it can be pretty disorienting.
That’s what this autumn has felt like to me. I am constantly surprised to hear myself say things I would not have dared to say before, do things with relative ease that used to overwhelm me with fear, make choices that feel good and right - even if they don’t always feel like “me” yet, because I still have to get used to who I am now.
When I walk through the rooms of my mind, I can’t help but think for a moment “oh! it looks different in here”, like walking into a space you forgot had been renovated, and for a second, you were expecting it to look how it used to. You can tell it’s the same room as before, it’s got the same bones, but there’s wallpaper and lights and artwork, and those big cracks got patched up, and it feels totally different. It feels warm, inviting, safe.
All the therapy I’ve gone through has changed me as a person, and though I fear it in my darker moments, I know there’s no going back. It cannot be undone. You can’t un-heal. You can get hurt again, but it will never be as bad again, because 1. you know what to do if you get hurt now, and 2. you’ve gotten a fresh start. You’re no longer walking around with a hundred unhealed wounds, actively in survival mode. You’re in a good place to get through anything that comes your way. You know how if you’re already weak, a cold can kill you. But if you’re fit and healthy, a cold is only a minor setback. Get it?
Treatment relieves the burden of trauma, and this is both incredibly freeing and disorienting at the same time.
You have to figure out who you are, all over again. For some of us, we didn’t ever get to develop our personalities fully to begin with. My experience with trauma started in childhood, and by the time I was a teen, I was living in survival mode. I had created an impenetrable steel wall that protected me from getting too close to danger, aka other people. So not only did I not get to have a balanced upbringing where I’m allowed to develop at a pace that feels good, I also did not get to create lasting social bonds or experience true connection with others. The wall that protected me, was also a cage of my own making.
In healing, we come to realize all these things about ourselves.
It’s like suddenly getting glasses after years of blurry vision. Suddenly, the causes and motivations behind everything becomes so clear, and we can see it through the perspective of those who hurt us too.
One of the hardest lessons to learn is that nothing is ever personal. It was never personal that your dad couldn’t be there for you, or that your rapist did what they did. This takes away much of that burden of guilt and shame over not being good enough/different/better that most of us carry with us. But it can also feel like defeat, in a way, to realize that nothing you could have done would have mattered. You could not have been “good enough” for things to have happened any differently. What happened had very little or nothing to do with you in the first place. Congratulations, you’re free! But you’re also powerless.
“But that’s terrifying”, you might think. “Now I have zero control over what happens to me, other people can just do whatever they want!” Luckily, that is still not the case!
I used to think that the bad things that happened to me, happened because I wasn’t good enough to deserve better, at least in the eyes of the person who was hurting me. I thought “good enough” was something I could become, and I chased it, thinking that’s where the bulk of my control lay.
By that logic, if I’m in an abusive relationship, I should focus my efforts on bettering myself so that my partner will see my value, see how good I am, and how not deserving of being abused I am, right? NO. Jesus fuck, NO (I’m torn between wanting to slap my younger self like that Spider-Man meme and yell “your lack of boundaries are allowing people like this to waltz right into your life and take whatever they want, and standing up for yourself once in a while doesn’t work because this kind of person is DEAF to that, they are literally unable to see you as a PERSON because they’re too wrapped up in their own SHIT” but I also want to tell her “it’s not your fault that you got like this, I know your heart is pure and you mean so well and just want to help them BUT THEY ARE UNABLE TO BE HELPED by you right now so you nEED TO GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!”
phew. sorry about that, where were we?
We control our own actions, not the actions of others. First order of business, we raise our standards for how people are allowed to treat us. Now, people in your life will most likely notice that something is changing, and they might praise or criticise this change, depending on how much interest they have in controlling you/your narrative. It’s an interesting thing to notice. You don’t have to do anything with this information, but it’s a valuable thing to be aware of when you are in a time of re-forging your boundaries.
Isn’t it actually quite a comfort that you are in control of your own actions? That you can choose who gets let in to your inner circle, and you can also revoke their access when needed? That no matter what happens externally, you can cultivate a beautiful inner world that is yours and yours alone?
You belong to yourself, and it is a comfort to remember that.
Another side effect of the healing process is that you might not need some of your old patterns and coping mechanisms any longer. You might actually be ready to let them go. Keep in mind that when I say “ready”, I mean in the aforementioned way, like “I don’t think I need this anymore, at least not right now. It would probably be fine not to do that”.
Rarely do we feel completely ready, completely free, completely healed. Maybe we never do. But what a luxury it is to notice that you feel readier, freer, less burdened than you did before! That’s more than good enough for now. Progress stacks - healing compounds.
Keep going, and in another year or two, you’ll be more grounded in yourself than you ever thought possible.
So, what now? A chapter is closing for me, but another is just beginning. And for the first time, I’m actually more excited than scared to find out what will happen in my story. It might be like 70/30 excited and scared, but that’s fine! I’m practicing acceptance, and that includes accepting the fear I’m feeling.
That’s all this is. Practice. So that when you need to be ready, you will be.
