Back and Forth

I wrote this as an assignment for my autobiography / memoir class, and am incredibly proud of it (especially after my girlfriend said she really enjoyed it), so I wanted to share it here <3

Back and forth. Her fingers move back in front of my face again and again. It’s always hard to start off a session, I can’t pull thoughts out of nowhere, except any that have been bouncing around my head all morning. Back and forth. I’m not quite sure what to focus on today, every part of my life demands attention as I try to move down a single path. The remaining parts of the craft I need to prepare for storytime at my library job later that afternoon, the assigned reading I need to catch up on for my classes once I get back home, the weight of exhaustion I’m carrying from another night of nightmares. Everything all at once. Back and forth. The exhaustion, I can talk about how tired I am. I feel guilty admitting how much I was dreading therapy today, but it’s the only thought I can really conjure right now, and it’ll be easy to work through more when I start to explain why. Back and forth. How am I expected to sleep when the worst moments of life are being unraveled from the pits of my chest. My therapist tries to help, she reminds me that everything I’m remembering is just like watching a movie, with images flashing by in front of me. Even though I try to imagine this, I can’t help but be caught up in this river of memory, and be swept away in its relentless current. Stop. Her fingers stop moving as she asks what’s crossed my mind. Finally, some slight relief from the constant movement in front of my eyes. I enjoy trying to organize my convoluted line of thinking into something that makes any sort of sense for me to share, something that seems like progress to my therapist, and feels even the slightest bit productive for me (even if it’s something I’ve already thought about all week). After this brief respite, her fingers start moving in front of my line of sight again. Back and forth. I don’t understand exactly how EMDR therapy works. Sure, when people ask, I give them the same explanation that was shared with me, repeated so much it feels like a script I’ve memorized by heart. Back in the ‘80s, a psychologist went on a walk and after moving her eyes back and forth, she realized that it was easier to process her thoughts. Wondering how this would apply to people processing and reprocessing traumatic memories, she began researching the effects of stimuli moving left and right in front of a person’s eyes, as well as sensations that would activate both the left and right brain. Back and forth. EMDR was born from this line of thinking. This line of thinking I’m caught in now. I was dreading therapy today because I was scared to acknowledge the overwhelming retrospection from my last session. My anger bubbles to the surface as tears well up in my eyes, immediately replacing my rage with incomprehensible sorrow and grief. No single feeling remains long enough for me to feel it in its entirety. Back and forth. It’s uncanny trying to jump back to ten years ago, trying to put myself back into a body I no longer belong to, yet feeling attached to everything that it has experienced. I can’t fathom the reality of being both that resilient child fighting for her life and the adult who is still waiting to be on the other side. Stop. Reflect.

The other side. I would always imagine what it would be like to get to the other side. This would be the perfect time when I knew that I could finally relax and know I would actually be okay. The main way I would comfort myself whenever things would get really bad was reminding myself: “just think of how happy you’ll be when this is all over.” “Imagine how relieved you’ll feel when you’re no  longer a burden.” “Standing up for yourself will eventually pay off. One day you will be free.” How long have I been waiting to be on the other side?

The session ends. I’m never ready for how abruptly this happens or how quickly time passes without me realizing it. It never feels like enough time to sift through everything that’s now rapidly rushing through my mind, but after forty minutes of unfiltered introspection, I feel exhausted and grateful for this sudden conclusion. 

Stepping outside my therapist’s office, I take a moment, rather than rushing back to my car like I usually do. The sky is so blue and beautiful today. I take a deep breath in. Stop. Reflect. Has breathing always felt this good? I feel like something that’s been missing for a long time has suddenly been returned to me. I slowly breathe back out. I spend too much time stuck back in the past, and I’m sick of looking forward to a future so perfect it doesn’t exist. For once, I feel completely present, as if a long-running game of tug-of-war inside my brain has finally been dropped for a brief recess. This is far from perfect or ideal, and my work is far from done, but for the first time in ten years, I feel as if I can finally relax here on the other side.