I read The Courage to Heal in two days, despite the horrific, painful and bitterly sad content. My brain felt the urge to vomit and spew forth the stories I’d read and purge them forever.
If I were to survive recovery, I decided, I needed to heal fast, like yanking off a Band-Aid, because new memories of the abuse slammed into me with the tsunami-like force every couple days, and I wasn’t sure how much of that I could take.
I told Clara at our next session that I hoped to be done with therapy in six months. To her credit, she kept her poker face on, nodded, and didn’t laugh at me.
Instead she began to lecture me on EMDR. Although EMDR is safe, it's a powerful tool. Heart rate and breathing can speed up during therapy, and it was possible that after the session, I might continue processing things very quickly and become overwhelmed. I promised that if I became overwhelmed, I would give her a call. I was lying. I knew I wouldn’t call.
Clara told me there were several methods of EMDR we could use; in the hands-on version, she could hold a pencil in front of my face and wave it back and forth across my field of vision. I didn't think that was a very good idea. I didn't want anybody waving a sharp object in front of my eyes.
Instead, we chose a hands-off method of EMDR. The equipment Clara got out of her desk drawer included a headset and two buzzing ovals, each the size of an elongated quarter and twice as thick, all connected to a machine about half the size of a portable CD player. I put the headset on, and she told me to hold one oval in each hand. My job was to turn on the machine. A little tone beat first in one side of the headset and then the other. The two oval lozenges vibrated one at a time, corresponding with the beeps. I could adjust the speed at which the beeps and buzzes occurred on the machine. It was also my responsibility to ask for a halt to the procedure if I became overwhelmed.
I felt silly holding a lump of vibrating plastic in each hand listening to beeps on a headset. I thought, This is never going to work.
Clara asked me to imagine my safe place. I did my best to picture myself in the boat on the little lake, staring up at the stars. Somehow, the machine enhanced my ability to visualize the scene. I could see my favorite constellation, and feel the breeze blowing over the bow. After 90 seconds, called a “set,” Clara had me switch the unit off.
She showed me two lists of phrases. On the left side of the paper were negative phrases like, ‘I am in danger’, or ‘I feel helpless’, or ‘no one will protect me’. On the right side of the paper were corresponding positive phrases, like, ‘I am safe’, ‘I feel strong and in control’, and ‘I can protect myself.‘
First I chose a negative phrase that described how I felt, and then chose a positive phrase that described how I wanted to feel. Clara told me to visualize my safe place, to repeat the negative phrase in my mind, and to focus on the feelings it brought up. I switched the headset back on, and imagined myself lying in the boat, looking up at the stars, and repeated the phrase, ‘no one can protect me’ in my mind. The experience was more intense than I expected it to be. Instead of fading back the feeling seemed to grow stronger and become more intense. Then Clara told me we would stop processing that feeling by choosing a positive statement and doing a few sets on it
instead.
I refocused on my safe place, and told myself again and again, “I’m safe now.”
For some reason, once I felt safe, I wanted to look over the side of the boat. When I did, I saw that there was something guarding my tiny lake and protecting me. An enormous golden lioness paced back and forth on the beach. Instantly I was drawn to her, as if we were connected with a bungee cord, until I stood on the beach beside her. An incredible surge of joy and recognition went through me like a lightning bolt, and I laughed and held open my arms. The lioness loped toward me and brought me down in a lion tackle, huge golden paws velveted, and began licking my face. I knew who this lioness was. This was Iyer, the lioness I'd pretended to be and to be with for years in my childhood. This lioness was part of me, and I'd missed her desperately without even remembering her.
When I told Clara what I'd visualized, and my reaction to the lioness, she must have felt some surprise. To her credit, she didn’t show it. (I made a mental note to never play poker with her). She didn't judge me or say things weren't supposed to happen that way or make me feel like anything had gone wrong. But she did stare a bit, and I didn't blame her. I’d never experienced anything like that before. My grin was so wide my mouth ached. Clara asked me how true on a scale of zero to 10, with zero being “not at all” and ten being “absolutely true,” how the statement ‘I'm safe now’ felt. I told her it was at least a nine.
On my way home, I began to pick apart everything I’d experienced. Maybe I nodded off on the couch for a few seconds, and dreamed the whole thing. Wasn’t that more likely?
“Can you spot the loony?” I asked my reflection in the rearview mirror. “Because I can.”
“How did therapy go today?” my husband asked.
“Oh, same old same old. I’m still nuts.”
He snorted in disbelief, but I was more certain than ever that something was wrong with my mind. An imaginary friend from my childhood had turned up, and felt real, as though there were an alternate dimension on the inside of my head. What else might be in there? Who else might be in there?
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