On The Important Of Healing & Reality Distortions

This may be a long one but I'll try to keep it consice but I hope there's some people out there who will find this insightful.

Since I was discarded, I've been doing weekly therapy for around 7 months and most recently (in the last 2 months) I've been doing EMDR. For those of you not familiar with EMDR, the briefest and closest descriptor I can give you is it's similar to a hypnotic, conscious daydream that lets your subconscious/"inner self" sort through memories similar to a real dream that helps with integrating traumatic or overwhelming experiences (that is a very high-level description that may not align with some people's experiences but that's what it's like for me!)

Back when I was still doing talk therapy, my therapist was explaining to me that the opening weeks/months of therapy, it's vital to establish a relationship/safety between both the therapist and the client, and the client and their own sub-conscious. She explained how if the inner-self/subconscious doesn't feel "safe" then those traumatic memories (or even feelings) are not accessible to you (you have may have hear these commonly known as "repressed memories" but there can be some additional nuance).

I was with my ex for over 4 years and whilst she had some strange or uncomfortable patterns, I didn't connect all the dots and like many of you only discovered AA after the discard as I was scrambling to understand what was going on. What I did know was that my ex had experienced an event (re: death) that was extremely traumatic before she met me. One of her strange patterns was quite frequent disassociation when I was talking (i.e. not listening), after 4 years my patience was running thin and the related behaviour was getting worse. When I suggested that additional therapy may be required to tackle it (she had done very minimal therapy for the intensity of the trauma), I was discarded. Character attacks began: I was unkind, I was impolite, I was cold, we were incompatible (I'm sure all of you heard similar things).

I had kept my ex's trauma a secret from my family because I didn't want them to pity her or see her differently. However, when the discard happened and therapy began, I felt it was important to share with my therapist and my family for context. Their reactions were incredibly empathetic both towards my ex and myself. My ex for obvious reasons but to me because they had to explain to me what that sort of trauma (PTSD) does to someone's psyche and lens of the world. This was something early in my therapy that I just couldn't understand. How someone could be sharing a life with me for several years but not sharing the same reality as me. I realised in these early weeks how I had never truly been seen for who I was and how my consistently loving behaviour may have been interpreted as something else.

Back to the EMDR therapy, for those of you that haven't experienced it, there is a few minutes at the beginning of each session when the therapy begins where there's a little apprehension. You're still "in the room", you're conscious of what you're "doing" and it takes a bit of time to get in the flow (almost like falling asleep). In these moments, I always had a flicker of fear... "What if something comes up I'm not ready for?", "What if I cry again?", "What will this say about me?" etc. etc. But for a split-second in those moments, I always think of my ex. I think that if she ever decided to heal/do therapy, this moment must be annihilatingly terrifying. To face that trauma again, on purpose and to understand it is a daunting concept.

I shared this feeling with my therapist and she reminded me about what she said earlier in talk therapy about that feeling of safety that must be developed with both the therapist and the self-conscious so you can feel safe enough to visit these memories/triggers otherwise the brain will not let it happen. She continued that further to this, in order to protect the psyche, the brain will form connections/pathways to not let you see/feel these feelings day-to-day (i.e. repress them (and your body still carries them)) which leads to self "gas-lighting", also known as "reality distortions".

We're going long here so hopefully you've all got the message but I'll try to summarise. Avoidance (at least in my ex's case) can be a symptom of much larger underlying trauma. The constant vying for control through people-pleasing, lying, not sharing emotions, not accepting other people's POV, constant need for validation, blocking themselves off from your emotions is all to control a fragile reality which is stopping them from looking at something. Accepting that you are your own person, with their own reality, their own emotions and feelings can be incredibly destabilising. What does it say about them if they hurt those feelings? If they're responsible for pain? What if that doesn't align with the narrative their brain has formed for themselves? You get the idea.

There is no room for another person's reality when the alternative to theirs is a room their sub-conscious isn't letting them see. They've broken a bone that they've let heal badly on its own and they know that healing it properly may involve a doctor breaking it again.

---

But what about us? What did EMDR help me understand about myself? Was my reality distorted? Did I allow someone to dictate my worth because I had such a low opinion of myself? Did I tell myself that incredibly hurtful behaviour that my partner was exhibting towards me could just be explained away by her trauma because accepting it was harmful and manipulative would mean she wasn't the love of my life?

Healing is a privilege that some people cannot afford professionally, I understand that. But attempting to face our demons is vital to seeing through the fog. Seeing ourselves and others.