My doctor and I continue to work on my problems. I am a willing, even eager patient, and he reads everything he can find on the
latest treatments. Some time ago, he started me on EMDR, Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. Even though new and experimental,
I tried it, and it worked. After just one session, I stopped experiencing
nightmares. During EMDR, the therapist uses a metronome, the pendulum
swinging in one-second intervals. The patient follows the pendulum with
his eyes while he tries to recall the details of the traumatic situations he
experienced.
In my case, I move my eyes in time to the metronome and
visualize the nets full of bodies dropping onto the deck of my ship. Occasionally,
my therapist moves his finger in time with the ticking and tells me to pick
a place – visualize
an interrogation cell – and then pay attention to what my body felt like
at the moment. He tells me to concentrate on my immediate feelings and
thoughts and to bring everything out. I don’t know how it works
or why, but during EMDR, I have a running dialogue about the darkest moments
in my life, and the entire time, I keep my eyes locked onto his finger as it
moves back and forth with the ticking metronome.
For me, EMDR therapy
has been a miracle. After only one treatment, I
felt as though I had emerged from a tunnel. I’d lived in darkness
twenty- five years, and then suddenly, I saw the world in a new light. Very
quickly, I was able to relax, and I started sleeping nights as long as two
hours at a time. I felt a new confidence in myself, and I looked forward
to every new day just to measure my progress and experience some new feeling
of release. EMDR. Who’da thunk it? So simple, and yet
so effective.
- Practiced obscurely for twenty years, EMDR therapy has proven
effective, if not the most effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder
in combat veterans. Dave was truly blessed when he was linked to this
EMDR therapist.
Now, I treat myself at home whenever I need it. I still take Sertraline,
an antidepressant, but in low doses, and it doesn’t bother me.
I’ve been in therapy ten years now and stopped smoking marijuana. Also,
I no longer experience the red-zone fits of anger that stole from my spirit
for so long. I think through situations now and don’t make stupid,
rash judgments when something unpleasant happens in my life.
The joy I’ve
found in my life is rooted in my family and my God. I
was lucky. My love for Yolanda and my faith in my Maker have meant the
difference between life as it is today and sitting for years in a prison cell.
|