For the love of a daughter.

          So mister EMDR and I have a love hate relationship. EMDR is a type of trauma therapy. Most people I know hate it but would agree that it in the end is very helpful. It’s always really hard to look at your problems and your fears in the face, but to me it is the only way to overcome them. I pushed them away and numbed them out with my eating disorder for a very long time. I was on pinterest and ran across this quote “Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”-Albus Dumbledore (yes you are a genius). This couldn’t be more true and I am learning it more and more as time goes on.

            After session I usually experience about a week of increased anxiety and depression, nightmares and flashbacks. So a couple of months ago after session my doctor asked if I wanted to make our next appointment now or later. I said later……later became two months. I was catching up with a friend and sharing experiences and I told her I hadn’t made my appointment yet because I was avoiding it. I agreed that it was helping it just felt crappy afterwards. So I agreed to make the appointment and even reward myself with a pair of earing’s, which I still haven’t collected on but don’t worry Tim I will!

            I may as well be transparent about the fact that the traumas I am working on include my dad and I am assuming that I am not the only one. With wearing the mask of my eating disorder for so many years I am actually quite good at acting like I am “fine”. I leave emotion out of conversations for the most part and just go by the facts. So when I finally sit down and release and talk about all the of the things that I myself had done a pretty good job at convincing myself that I was “fine” about, its overwhelming, its hard and its exhausting. Graduating from treatment in no way shape or form means that your done (which I will go over in another blog in the near future).  Its hard work everyday, and its impossible to resolve issues in a matter of months.

            So even here and now as I am writing this I am stalling with actually getting to the main issue and how my appointment went and the breakthrough I had. So I know I gave a bit of a back story in a previous blog about the abuse growing up from my father (its even hard for me to call him that as I am writing this). A lot went on even after the divorce and I finally came to the realization that I could never have a healthy functioning relationship with him no matter how much I wanted it or tried to convince myself otherwise. So about four years ago I ended that relationship. He was not at my wedding for the tearful father daughter dance and he will not be there for the birth of my children.

            Again with all of this I am very good at acting like I could care less because I am better off. I know all of these things logically that it is not healthy for him to be in my life and that I do not want him trying to contact me. Forgiveness and the un-hardening of my heart towards him is something that I am continually working on. For me it is easier to be mad or angry at someone than to admit that I am hurt or sad about something. Even with all of my years of therapy and knowing that anger is a secondary emotion this is what I often go to.

            For these past four years I have been terrified that he was going to eventually try to reach out to me. I have had flashbacks and anxiety and have been living in fear of someone who could no longer hurt me, physically at least. I see him across a restaurant, in my rearview mirror, my heart stops when I’m at work and a drink with his name on it is called out. It’s a terrible feeling that I would really like to overcome some day.

            So back to EMDR sitting on that stereotypical leather couch pouring my heart out and crying profusely, which if you know me or have been in treatment with me know what a feat this is, I have often had tissue privileges revoked for not allowing myself to cry. There was one of those awkward silences where a million things are going through my head all at once and I’m like come on for the love of all things please say something!! He said “you really love your dad”. Again my anger automatically kicked in again and I could feel my face feeling hot, but then something else happened completely I started sobbing even harder.

            He was right and I knew it. As much as I don’t want to admit that I love someone who has caused me so much pain and heartache I do. I have been holding onto so much anger and resentment that I haven’t allowed myself to grieve the fact that I have love for someone who wasn’t what I hoped they would be. That as Mr. Dumbledore so eloquently pointed out earlier numbing the pain does nothing for me. I now that the thoughts that I can love someone who hurt me and know that it is better for them to not be in my life, both can coexist as much as I don’t want them to. So this, my friends is why I have such a love hate relationship with EMDR.

            It’s some of the hardest things that I have done in my life, but I hold onto the hope that things will be better. That I will have more breakthroughs like this and the more and more that I have the closer I will be to full recovery. I am so blessed to have the amazing husband that I do that after I got home with my eyes swollen and puffy from crying my whole way home he tied a belt around his head and acted like a ninja to cheer me up! These moments are the moments that I hold onto in the dark parts of recovery that make it all worth while.

            So to those who avoid really looking at the scary stuff (I’m the first person on this list), try. Hold onto your supports and know who can support you in these situations. I promise you it’s going to hurt while your doing it and possibly even for some time after, but the rainbow that comes after the storm is amazing. So is finding a strength inside yourself that you never knew you possessed.