annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wow Wow. So I had the EMDR this morning and it really is the weirdest shit. I've been in two minds about how much to write about it, but fuck it, we're all pals here and it was definitely significant so I'm going for it. We'd selected a particular scene from my childhood to revisit. For context, my birth mother died when I was fifteen months old and my father remarried within a year and then had two children with my stepmother. I don't remember before her - she's the woman I think of us mum. She also had a son from her first marriage. In this scenario I'm about eight years old, sitting on the open staircase above the kitchen while she unpacks some shopping. It was her custom that if she had to buy something for me she'd pick up a little something for 'the little ones' but if she was shopping for them she wouldn't get a little treat for me. On this day I'd plucked up the courage to ask her if she'd got me something and she'd told me it wasn't always about me, that I was greedy and selfish. I believed her and have carried that with me ever since. My intellect knows I am neither greedy nor selfish but that has never ben enough to change how I've felt myself to be. So we sit facing each other, me and J, the therapist. We start with her moving a kind of wand with a blob on the end from side to side and I'm to follow it, but that doesn't work, it just annoys me, so she asks me to tap my legs, following the rhythm of her tapping. I'm to picture myself, sitting on the stairs, watching Mum unpack the shopping and see what I notice about it. I didn't notice anything particular the first time - this is all short bursts, starting and stopping, probably less than a minute each time, but I could be wrong on that. The next time I noticed that Mum didn't pay me any attention at all. I became very upset, I wanted her to be my Mummy. Tears poured out of my eyes. It gradually changed to I want my Mummy which made me cry more than I can ever remember crying about that. And that Mum was actually mean, not very nice, she never was and it gradually came round to the fact that she was wrong, I am worthy, worthy of the love of a mother, but that I didn't get that, which is sad, but that I survived, I made it through and Mum can't hurt me any more. I don't accept her version of me, she can fuck off. I came out of it reeling, stunned into exhaustion. Came home, fell into bed, slept for several hours, dreaming wild dreams that slid away as I woke. I found I couldn't bear Bloke's company at all, but he's decided to paint the back room downstairs, his usual place, so he was in here with me all evening and I could hardly speak to him. Couldn't quite get myself upstairs and out of the way. He showed no sign whatsoever of noticing how I was feeling - that's not his skill set at all. I don't like feeling that way about him particularly - it would be easier if I liked him a bit more, but also I don't care. Bed now. 11:37 p.m. - 02.11.22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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