Therapy

Well, it's been about a half million years or so since I've posted to my blog, and since I've been brought on as a mod in TDS as well I've been asked by a few people as to my story with regard to therapy. So, two birds, one stone...

A little background perhaps first? I'll try to keep it quick.

In my earliest days, I was a very social kid, who loved to chat with people. Never had a problem approaching people, played with random kids wherever; life was good. But as I got a bit older, I came to realize that something was different for me. I didn't speak the way others did. In time, it got worse. By the time I went to school, I had developed a full-blown stutter, and by grade 1 I was beginning to get into using facial tics to try to 'force out' stuck syllables. Among severe stutterers this is actually quite common, and adds a great deal to the stigma of speech.

Also around grade 1, I asked to be put into French immersion, because I thought that it was a cool language, and my parents noticed that I had a knack for picking up other languages. Ironic, no? As it turned out though, going to a new school along with an increasingly severe speech impediment was a rather bad idea. I was immediately labelled as a 'retard' (such words were still used at the time, at least by the kids), and the school was trying tooth and nail to get my IQ tested. My parents fought tooth and nail against that, since they knew that I was bright, but they were only able to hold off until grade 2.

Still, within a month of arriving at school and being branded as I was, I managed to go from knowing 'cereal box' French to the head of the class. So, I was the 'tard who was smarter than most other kids in my class... not great for socializing, I can tell you. Pretty much from then on I was bullied relentlessly. By grade 3 I was entirely isolated from my peers, and retreated into books, science and math.

This continued with varying severity, despite receiving treatment for my stutter, until grade 6 when my teacher (also the vice principal of the school) decided to get in on the fun. I won't go into detail, but he basically spent the year doing his best (and more or less succeeding) in breaking me. But hey, the cool kids liked him though, so that was okay? The only reason I stayed at that school once my parents found out, about 2/3 of the way through the year, was because it would be silly to change schools just before moving to Jr. high. They did their best to get him fired, but since they couldn't, they made his life as miserable as possible. Unfortunately, he all but failed me, but that was fought and bla bla bla.

I've gone over this because even though for the most part the bullying stopped in Jr high (although I never really had a good social circle until late high school), I was carrying that set of experiences around with me. The transition into pubescent depression masked the clinical depression and nascent anxiety disorders well, and by the time I realized that there was a larger problem I was in my early 20s and falling apart.

(to be continued...)

 

Fast forward the better part of a decade. I've finished my degree, but I've been unemployed for a year while looking for work in my field. Living back at home, with family members that range from very supportive to all out hostile, a generally poor outlook and fully blossomed anxiety disorders, major depression, body dysmorphic disorder and a few other quirks for good measure. Without school or work, and with few friends, I've managed to essentially isolate myself. My sleep schedule is almost completely inverted so that I can avoid hostile family members. Needless to say, I'm none too happy.

At this point, I'm all but agoraphobic from my avoidant tendancy. I leave the house maybe once a week at most, and usually only when I'm guaranteed to see nobody else on the street. I'm still 'applying' for work, but needless to say it hasn't been going well. The stress has gotten so severe that I've developed IBS, and have basically stopped eating. My behaviour is becoming erratic, and around November I go through a phase where I don't speak a word to another person for a period of just over three weeks.

Eventually, just after xmas, I hit a breaking point. I won't go into detail, but some inappropriate things happened, and while nobody was hurt, I've managed to thoroughly offend most of my family. It's been a month or so since I've been subsisting on a sparse diet, and with little of it sticking around for it to stick, as it were. My rock bottom.

For years I had been researching different treatments for depression and anxiety, and had tried every self-medication and self-treatment under the stars. Nothing gave anything but temporary relief, and luckily I had been involved with harm reduction enough by that point to recognize that most would lead very quickly to addiction. Nonetheless, I had to deal with a GHB addiction and was developing an addiction to benzos by the time it hit me: I could either continue along this route and end up in hospital for malnutrition or psych issues, or I can deal with it. In a flash of lucidity, I chose the latter, and found a highly recommended CBT practitioner, and somehow managed to get an appointment in her full practise.

Interestingly, when I went in for my initial consult (by then I had been dead sober, other than benzos to sleep, for nearly a year by the way) she suggested that CBT would not likely be the best route for me. Rather, she suggested EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization Reprogramming. It was a relatively new treatment, but it had startling success with certain anxiety disorders, particularly those linked to past traumas.

I didn't think of my experience as being particularly traumatic, but as I learned in time there are traumas, Traumas and TRAUMAS. Mine was of the first variety, but was significant enough (in her opinion) to affect me severely. I didn't mention this, but there was an instant rapport between my therapist and I, which is something that I would consider to be vital for the success of psychological treatments; if I didn't trust her implicitly from the get go, it would have taken too long, and I likely would not have been able to undergo the treatment. As I'll elaborate on below, EMDR is incredibly intense, and even with the safety net of a practitioner controlling the process can be terrifying.

(TBC.... I'm drained)

 

Okay, now for the meat of it: what was the treatment itself like?

First of all, there was a session of general history taking, where I was diagnosed and a treatment plan was proposed. Even this was beneficial to me, as it felt good to get some of this stuff out in the open, and in a safe way. I had a few weeks between sessions (I was really just squeezed in whenever possible), so I was able to research EMDR and find out what I was in for.

The second session was mostly client centred talk therapy, where we were able to find a few good starting points for focusing the treatment, along with practising a few CBT techniques so that I could become more familiar with them prior to the treatment. Third session was the intro to the treatment itself: what I could expect, what she would do to help and guide me, precautions to take, what to do afterwards, etc. We also calibrated the stimulus, which nearly threw me into the state right there and then.

For those who don't know, EMDR is centred around a near-hypnotic state which is entered, usually rapidly, through the application of bilateral stimulus. Once in the state, the traumatic experience(s) are re-played from memory, allowing them to be Reprocessed in the same way that memories are normally processed in sleep. Originally it would be done by having the patient track their eyes back and forth (hence Eye Movement), but over time it was found that other bilateral stimuli work as well or better. For most people, touch is a very powerful sense, and with my social isolation that intensity was doubled.

The stimulus that we used was a new device that would send pulses of vibration to alternating bulbs that are held in the hands. The pulse vibration frequency (and intensity) were tuned in the third session, and that was where I nearly fell into the state. I was pretty tense, and while we were simply aiming to find settings that 'felt right' for me, we stumbled across the right one very quickly, and apparently I was ready to go right there and then. Since the process takes a while, and is exhausting, we aborted and finished with a bit of relaxation work before ending the session.

The fourth session was the big one. Since I was so ready to fall into the state, she moved a few other people around so I only had to wait a week to get in. After just a few minutes of 'how was your week, any big challenges?', we dove right in.

It's hard to describe what it was like. The analogy that she used while describing it to me is like being inside a comfortable train and watching scenery going by. Sometimes it's pretty, sometimes it's not, but no matter what you're always in a physically safe place, and you can close the blinds if ever needed. That's about right. Once in the state, we started off with delving into some of my smaller traumatic memories and seeing where they would lead. I would describe what was going on and how I felt, and she would offer minimal guidance. Occasionally, once a 'scene' was done she would offer a few pulses to get to the next one.

We went to some very dark places, and some very old memories; back to the blurry beginnings of them. While I was in the state I was able to remain mostly calm, and didn't feel any exertion, and seemed okay (if a bit spacey) afterwards. We made another appointment for the following week, and that was that.

Once I left the office and started to walk back to the train station, I pretty well fell into a daze. I don't remember how, but I wound up back at work (I had miraculously found a job by then, although it was pretty crap at the time) oddly enough, and when I snapped to I just got up and went straight home. Didn't say a word to anyone, just got up, locked the door and went home.

Over the week I would get flashes of memory or intense bursts of emotion. At one point I was at the gym (my agoraphobia had already lifted somewhat, clearly, although I was still pretty anxious) and saw a replay of some hockey player smashing another player's head into the ice. Over. And. Over. I was on a cross trainer, and was just overcome with a blind, searing rage. I was able to focus it into my workout, and while that device will probably never be the same again I was able to exhaust the anger. It was shocking at the time, but it makes sense really: I had placed myself in the position of the guy getting smashed, and was re-living a particular bullying event where I had gotten my head smashed repeatedly into a brick wall. At the time I was just in pain, but as an adult re-living the memory I was able to express the rage at being treated in such a way.

(denouement follows...)

 

That particular session was really the breakthrough for me. A lot was covered, and considerably more found its way out in the following weeks. By the time I had my next session, I was feeling odd, but decent. Two more sessions followed, where I uncovered more crap, felt more terror, and was basically emotionally exhausted all the time.

Eventually, we hit a wall. I couldn't seem to access a particular memory. We tried for about 10 minutes, at which point she pulled me out of the state and explained to me that we could keep trying, or we could let sleeping dogs lie. In her experience, memories that were strongly blocked like that, other than in severe cases where most memories were blocked, are blocked for a reason, and it winds up taking a lot of work to reprocess and recover from them. Being the cautious fellow that I am, I opted to see how things sat until the next session, and if it seemed like I needed to attack it we would.

By the next session, I was again feeling better, but still strange, and still exhausted. She suggested that we go under one last time to see if there were any other bits of detritus that could be gotten rid of; tidying up as it were. We spent the session bouncing all over my memories, and eventually I just came out on my own. We were done. The blocked memory remains blocked, and I was fine with that.

I left that day, feeling light. There was one more session to go, more of a follow-up than anything else. By the time I returned, I felt like I had an iron mask that I didn't even know that I was wearing removed, and was breathing the free air for the first time in my life. It literally felt like a low MDMA dose for about three months. Everything was beautiful, life was wonderful, I felt no anger, anxiety, upset or sadness. Every day I would find something incredibly quotidien and revel in its transcendent wonder. It was amazing.

In time, reality tempered my joy, and I regained my balance. Winter came, and I started to feel a bit low again. I realized that the therapy didn't cure me, but it removed the obstacles that I had been unable to remove, despite working on it for a solid decade on my own. I knew that I was capable of being happy on my own, and that I had the tools to maintain my good mental state. I was ready to finally start living.

Since then, I've learned a great deal, and come quite far. I've been practising yoga regularly for nearly three years, and have found it to be such an incredible boon to my mental and emotional health that I've just completed an introductory course in teaching it.

There are still challenges ahead of me: while I'm a lot more comfortable in social situations now than I've ever been, I'm still an introvert and need time to recharge after socializing. That will likely never change. In some spheres, particularly the romantic, I am about a decade-and-a-half behind as compared to those around me. A lot of social interaction that most people learn in their teens are completely incomprehensible to me, but I'm working on it. I have a healthy circle of friends from a variety of spheres, and I'm very lucky to be able to draw from their collective experience to try to catch up a bit in my development.

So... there you have it. For me, therapy basically saved my life; made it possible for me to actually live. It didn't cure me, but it opened doors that I could never have opened myself. I do believe quite strongly that everyone, healthy or ill, could benefit from some sort of therapy, and am really saddened that even in a country with (theoretically) socialized healthcare, mental health treatment (other than medication) is considered a luxury. It is expensive, and even with a good health plan it often isn't fully covered. I'm fortunate that my parents had the means and will to help me out, and I hope one day to repay them for it, but many many others do not have that resource.

 

I enjoy this history of Dave.

 

OMG, Dave...you are an immensely strong individual.

 

Thanks! I don't know if strength is the right word, as I'm still a bit of a coward. I'm learning determination though, and that's perhaps not far off the mark?

 

It's great that you are able to discus it. I actually have never heard of that type of therapy but will read up on it. Getting all out on a Blog is a chore but it is a therapy of sorts in and of itself.

 

I can relate to your being an introvert. I'm one as well. And I tend to be agoraphobic and anti-social. Certain people just grate against my nerves. For example, being around extroverts and certain other personality types, especially those who are unwilling or unable to stop talking, and 99% of the time those types babble on about something idiotic, is draining.

I have partial hearing loss, so if I should not be able to hear someone's voice over the murmur of a crowd, much less make out every single word they say, unless they are trying to inform me that there is a FIRE or some other emergency..... For this reason, I can't deal with certain settings like the local light rail, buses, airport departure gates, or public libraries after school lets out. The times I have to, I have to keep an mp3 player plugged into my ears to drown them out.

Afterwards, I try to work out the stress by going for a 10 mile run or something. I even go through experiences like you did at the gym when you saw the ice hockey video. Relive the memory ---> burst of anger ---> adrenaline ---> sprint it off --> feel better.

I was wondering if you are still in the living situation where you have to deal with hostile family members. That must have been very stressful. Did you get that straightened out?

 

@rach: Sort of like a therapy, yeah. I've gotten past a lot of my issues, so they're not too painful to write about, but recalling that time in my life was a bit tough at times, and I wrote most of this last night when I was already tired from a long day and week. I figure that I need to be posting more around here anyway

@socko: Heh, it can be exhausting to be around strong extroverts; especially those that keep interrupting. I don't say a lot, and when someone interrupts me I have to put down a little flash of anger.

My hearing's not great either, particularly filtering out noise. The thing is, everyone has a bit of an innate lip reading ability. Try it out: when someone is talking to you somewhere with a little bit of background noise and you're having trouble hearing them, watch their lips. The crazy thing is that it's not a conscious thing, but rather when you do that it sounds like they are talking louder! Crazy, no?

No, I moved out as soon as I feasibly could. The thing is that the hostile person moved out before me, and as soon as she did we started to get along better. We are very different people, and just tend to grate on each other pretty quickly. She's gotten a lot better since getting married though; grown up a lot. Still, up until about a month ago she kept treating my brother like shit, but that's a whole other thing.

 

It's not lip reading. In crowds, I do everything I can to tune out everyone. I usually wear sunglasses or pull down the visor of my hat so I don't have to look at anybody, especially not their faces. I really do not like crowds.

 

i've been curious about emdr and how it worked, thanks much for posting this, dave! it's always interesting to hear about how different kinds of therapy affect people in different ways. i love reading your blog entries

 

Ah I see-- you're avoiding conversation, not trying to hear one. My bad

I'm not crazy about crowds either, but I made the conscious decision to move downtown because it was too easy to isolate myself in the suburbs. Even if I don't interact much with people on any given day, I'm around them all the time, and I find that helps. Sort of like acclimatizing to the cold.

Also: oh, hai spork! Thanks; nice to see you around!

 

This was extremely informative and I really appreciate you posting it (and linking me to it)! Even if you've worked through a lot of the blocks and things, it's still difficult to recall such memories, so it definitely took a lot of strength and determination to share and discuss such personal matters with us all; I really admire that.

And the information about the EMDR treatment is invaluable. I am definitely looking into different treatment methods for things like PTSD so being able to get such a positive account of this one is really helpful to me. It's something I would have to discuss at length with a therapist or someone, as I don't know if I'm as brave as you and would actually be able to do it... While I know that revisiting memories is essential to almost every treatment out there, I'm still so nervous about actually trying.

But seeing the success you had with it, and knowing it took a lot of determination to go through with it, is really inspiring and I hope that maybe one day I can manage to overcome my fear and do something like this, too.

 

The neat thing about the treatment is that while there is a fear component, it usually dissolves away once you're in the state. You become a bit detached, like an observer of your memories. Although you're sort of re-living them, you maintain your connection to physical reality, and therefore know that you're in no danger. Thus, by facing your trauma, you are able to overcome it.

Keep in mind as well that my case was relatively minor. Childhood bullying is common, and traumatic, but still doesn't hold a candle to severe abuse, rape assault, military service, and what have you. Such cases would likely need a lot more prep work and more sessions, but EMDR still has a good track record with even very severe traumas.

 

Wow, that was great of you to post that ... it is cool to learn about who Dave really is after all!
That would have been tough growing up. And getting through everything.
People are bullies (a lot of them are) and it is so hard to get through and away from everyone.

 

Dave, this was very touching, well written, and reminded me a lot of myself.

I am glad you are doing well, and hope that things keep working out for you.

I haven't made much progress in therapy so I opted not to return to it.

 

I liked reading this post... I can empathise with a lot of what you say - I wasn't severely bullied, but I was bullied none the less, by my 'best' friends, and all this while I was going through a hard time at home... Definitely something that has stuck with me. GHB (well, GBL for me) addiction - check. It took the edge off, then it started producing the edge as well...

I liked reading about the EMDR treatment, I have heard about it before but I'd like to look into it a bit more. Hope you're well

 

Dave, I can't believe that it took me this long to find your blog. I am so glad that I did. You took all those tender years of being bullied and victimized and the subsequent years of reacting to the pain and completely took the reins in your life. Learning yourself, accepting yourself, making peace with your past and creating such a positive, open stance is beyond admirable, it is heroic.

I know that you love your profession/field, but have you ever thought about getting into the healing fields at all? (Beyond being a yoga instructor which is certainly a healing endeavor). I think that you would be such an asset to the world of therapy.

 

Praise from Caesar! Thank you herbavore!

I do what I can. I've been toying with that idea for a while; dunno if I'll ever translate it into an IRL pursuit.