I Feel Much Better Now

On Tuesday, I had my first actual EMDR session with a therapist downtown. It was not our first meeting. I had met her my previous week and intended to only tell her about specific issues I am working on now -- namely, having reoccurring painful memories about the first time I flunked out of student-teaching in graduate school. For some reason this first experience suddenly feels as vivid and sharp as if it happened last week. Maybe it’s because I’m now working as an online tutor? And yet, I don’t have problems dealing with the second and third times I flunked out of student-teaching. Strange.

Anyway, I started to tell her about it, but then found myself telling her my whole life story in about 30 minutes. It was a rather stream of consciousness rambling, but I felt oddly calm explaining it all (probably because I’ve already had to explain my life story to so many previous therapists). She basically got the Sparknotes version of my life.

She was writing furiously in her notebook as I spoke and nodded her head throughout, as if already familiar with these kinds of testimonies. This reassured me – she’d seen and heard a lot. And was experienced.

The EMDR session went as planned. I closed my eyes and she tapped my knees back and forth with her fingers as I silently recalled the experience in my mind of my mother beating me when I was six because I didn’t understand my homework. Occasionally she would pause and ask me what I was thinking.

I’m defective. Born this way. Made this way. Not sure.

Then she would go back to tapping my knees and I would go back to recalling the experience in my mind. What are you thinking?

Dystopia. Change is happening too fast. Ron Paul is not the answer.

What are you thinking?

Endless competition. Endless consumption. The planet cannot sustain.

What are you thinking?

Suicide. South Korea has the second highest suicide rate in the world. The U.S. is only 49^th.

What are you thinking?

We’re all too smart for our own good. Athletes are the fastest they’ve ever been.

What are you thinking?

Shame. Guilt. The United States. China. Korea.

And so on.