This Veronica speaking, and this blog is all about me, today.
I have done a ton of healing, and my support system helps me in steps towards becoming a better, more healed self, every day. I recently started talk therapy again. It is with a lady who also has a brain injury. She is helping through EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy.
EMDR Therapy is a structured psychotherapy that allows people to process destressing memories. While in therapy, I hold on to vibrating paddles. They allow me to talk about a situation while the paddles use both sides of my brain and vibrate back and forth. This is helping me work through the situation we are talking about and help me understand it better. It is great for PTSD sufferers.
EMDR Therapy helps an individual process the trauma memories and helps reduce the stress that comes along with those memories. While I am working through some traumatic things, it is allowing my body to understand that I am no longer in that particular situation and have closure on those parts of my life.
One of the many very difficult memories I have been dealing with is when I walked into my parents bedroom and my dad was laying on the bed, while holding his heart. I saw the scared look on his face and called my mom to the room. Now, when anyone I love in our house leaves the room for any length of time, I believe something bad has happened to them, causing me to panic and cry. It is so hard to live this way. By the way, my dad is ok now. He had a clogged artery and had surgery to put a stint in.
EMDR Therapy, focuses on the memory and while talking directly about it, it changes how you store those memories in your brain. While using both sides of the brain, it is allowing me to put things like accidents, and scary memories into a little box in our brain. Making so it is the only time we feel these sad, or disturbing feelings about those specific memories, which is when we choose to open that box. After doing the treatment and allowing it to rewire my brain, I am looking forward to having a healthier response to situations such as the one I mentioned.
If you are interested in hearing more about our lives as we live with brain injuries, please read,
A Miracle a Day, One Day at a Time: Hope After Traumatic Brain Injury.
Dawn Corbelli 