PTSD From a Different Perspective

There is a show that aired on PBS this year called, This Emotional Life. It’s a series about the mind, our emotions, relationships, and therapy. There are three episodes. I was particularly interested in the second one, Facing Our Fears. It was about anger, fear, and depression when they go awry. The fear portion focused on phobias and PTSD. I found myself identifying directly with two war veterans who were suffering from PTSD. 

The show didn’t cover EMDR. Instead they focused on a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The treatment was developed at University of Pennsylvania and is called Prolonged Exposure Therapy. It involves retelling and reliving the event(s) over and over until the event(s) become less frightening. EMDR is like that only it takes the reliving aspect a bit further. EMDR incorporates eye movement in a bilateral direction while remembering the event(s).

I have four days until the next session, and I’m not looking forward to it. The repercussions from the first session left me feeling light, happy, free, and brave. The next time I was more open and the reliving was more intense and more distressing. I didn’t come away with more confidence. I came away drained emotionally and a little relief that I could remember without dying, but the bad thoughts and dreams were more intense afterward the second time. I remember them when they startle me awake, sometimes I have to get out of bed and relax, but I don’t remember the dreams by morning. The memory is gone.

After the first EMDR treatment the benefits were so beneficial afterward. By the second time, I was excited to do more. This next time will be the third time, and I don’t feel as ready for it. There was a massive release of emotion, the second time, and I experienced a ton of fear and intense grief. I don’t really understand how all that intense reliving can be beneficial. The one thing I noticed from the PBS show was that the people who completed their therapy considered themselves recovered.

For now, I’m willing to continue with the EMDR treatment, but I don’t want it to be as intense next time. I want to arrange for it to be a little less emotionally rigorous. I feel like I need to process more of what happened by talking about it, instead of reliving it. I also feel like I can talk about it better now, but experiencing it is so extremely painful and scary. I just want to take a break for a while. I just want to go back to baby steps for a little while