Walking home from my session of EMDR, it takes about 30 minutes. On the way, I pass a nursery school humming with the sound of children’s voices, noise, laughter, playtime. A throng of joy. Looking up at the trees, like I always do, the sky is blue, cloudless. A blackbird hops along a wall. I watch it jump onto the grass, pecking for worms. I make my way down to the seafront, squawking seagulls everywhere. The smell of fish and chips travels across the breeze, ice-creams for sale in every flavour. Everything’s normal. Kids playing on the beach, couples walking hand in hand, runners moving along in bright lycra. But everything feels different, so I move slowly with it. I notice my breathing, feel it rising, falling. The midday light seems brighter than usual. The dimmer switch is off. I am switched on from being switched off. Permanently.
During 90 minutes of therapy I’d travelled far. Back in time to a room I was trapped in. I was already there, it took the rhythmic, movement of hand and eye to truly arrive. So I’ll explore, because this is happening, now. Notice. Everything. I do not just see myself, I am myself. I am the child I was. I feel all, I see all. The deep mist of numbing dissociation rises, I emote. Filling my body, reaching the sides of my skin, growing into myself. Knowing the pain I once felt. Knowing myself. Can such strength exist ? How? I was 4. Now I am walking around myself in the room, admiring this child, with no means to explain. No words, only the depth of emotions, coupled with the sight of myself in the circumstances I am trapped within. Breathless with reality, I tell my therapist what I notice and I keep telling her, until I realise I can grab the girl’s hand and take her out of the room. We run and run and run and we don’t stop.
As we escape it dawns on me, this is my memory to imagine now. I can create a new story, rewriting my own adaptation. A beach comes into view, warm sand beneath my feet, sunburnt nose, flushed face. We run to the waters edge, dipping our toes in warm ocean water. I cry now. I got her out. Relief floods my body, if only I could have got into that locked room before. But I didn’t have the means. Now I do, EMDR will be the way. There’s shock, disbelief. My mind created how to hide this memory, now it creates a way to free it. I could turn into a bird, or an insect, maybe a bee or a ladybird. Of course it will have wings. This is just the beginning though, the first layer of skin. The mind will move me deeper. And deeper. Until I meet the way the child truly felt, and at this point I will break out again in sweat, straining inside my skin to leave one more time. But I don’t have to leave, because now I’ve connected. To the girl in the room, her feelings, her story and her breathless escape. To myself. I have to feel this pounding pain, let it rise up, thaw out. Hold it, I need to hold it.
As I unlock my front door the neighbour’s cat rubs round my shins, so I reach to stroke her silky, black head. These last few minutes of my walk it’s hurt to inhale. The intensity of the child’s emotions. For the first time. I promised this to her. There’s excitement, surprise, joy . It’s like finding a secret present and unwrapping it to make it anything I desire. This is the difference I feel, as I watch the sea roll in and out from my living room window. I’ve found a way to feel, to create my own story out of the story I was given, reclaiming the small girl. To be who she wants to be. Now I can’t wait to go back next week, to travel back again, to rewrite our story with truth and imagination. To rewire my mind to the power of love.