It's Not Always About You

by Kirk Harrington

Not long ago, I participated in trauma therapy.  It was called EMDR, which I have since learned stands for eye movement and desensitization processing.  Its prescribed to people who have gone through some kind of trauma.  I was a candidate because I discovered in therapy that I had gone through trauma as a child, through a bad breakup, through some loss of employment, and with some challenges in my marriage.

I remember holding these small devices in my hand while one or the other vibrated as I closed my eyes and the therapist spoke.  The therapist ask me to follow memory paths of the things that had bothered me most in my past...and to let the paths flow like water without restriction.  What I found doing this is that it let these thoughts flow and brought things to the surface that had been there for years.  And that once they were brought to the surface, I could process them.  I also remember actually feeling what I felt in those traumatic times...as if my body had recorded the memories in my muscles.

I learned, for example, that I was left in an orphanage when I was a child.  I was left there and I was confused.  And strangely, I had buried the feelings and experience of it because it was so painful.  I also learned that this was one of the main roots of my anxiety disorder.  Further I remembered actual images that I had kept locked away...like...

The women who watched over us (and the other children in the orphanage) had thick rimmed glasses and polyester dresses.  It was during the 70s.

I remembered the other children there and how most kept to themselves and that I felt more alone because of that.

I also remembered the loud thoughts of 'I must have done something wrong'...'I am here because I did something wrong'.  And I blamed myself for being abandoned and left in that orphanage...somehow I was not good enough for my parents because they left me there...alone.

And it was this that traumatized me so much.  This was one of the roots of my anxiety disorder that has stinted me for most of my life.  The same body memories I felt  in those moments...I had felt on countless occasions where I had to deal with some kind of situational anxiety in my life.  And while there was other trauma that happened later...this was a significant part of what followed later.

With this therapist...it actually felt like I was there and I was a little boy again.  It was quite surreal.  And it was in that moment of pain...when I could feel pain in my arms...like there was a hole in my chest...and I felt like my air was sucked from my lungs...feeling that trauma from so long ago...that my therapist said something like 'I want you to go to your younger self...what would you do or say to him to comfort him?'.

And of course I said that I would hug him and tell him it wasn't his fault.  That everything would be ok and he would be safe.  That he was safe now and allowed to be happy.

I also said to him...'Your Dad left you there so you could be safe...while you mother got well.  This had nothing to do with you.'

And I remember seeing in my mind my older self embracing my younger self...and it was as if a weight was lifted off my mind and heart...there was clarity...and I could embrace the light and the happiness around me in those moments.

As I played this out more...I remembered a kind woman I met when I first got there.  I remember she made me feel at ease.

I remembered eating at a table with other children.  And seeing them laugh and I would laugh too.

I remember hanging from some playground dome bars and thinking that my belly hanging out was silly.

It's so easy to blame ourselves for things that happen to us.  "I did something wrong".  "I must be here because I did something wrong".  The truth is though...

It's not always about you.

In my case, there were things that I didn't fully understand about why I was there...what happened that led me to experiencing that loss in my life...in my case of being separated from my parents.  It would have been nice if someone had explained it to me.  I wish they had.  I wish I could have gone back in time and yelled at my father to tell him 'YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME WHY!  I WAS ALONE AND SCARED AND YOU JUST LEFT ME THERE!  WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!?!?!'.  

This was impossible though.  His choice to not tell me and comfort me before just dropping me off affected me.  And I couldn't blame my mother either...she was mentally ill and couldn't take care of herself.  And I was so young that I couldn't have fully comprehended the situation I was in.  Which leads me to another lesson I have had to learn from this experience...

That some choices people make can and will affect us more than others.  Especially big life changing ones.  It helps though to separate our choices from their choices.  And especially...we do not have to define our current happiness by the poor decisions of others.

Let me say that again...

We do not have to define our current happiness by the poor decisions of others.

Yes, we should learn to forgive others and especially ourselves...but we do not always have to accept what other do to us...and we can choose to live better.  We also try not to get into the trap of blaming and hurting others around us (the people that care about us) to try to soothe our own pain.  It's not fair to them...or you.

We can also choose to not blame ourselves...to claim safety now...and love ourselves now for who we are....despite of our current imperfections.  We do not have to play the victim...we do not have to prove anything to anyone.  Yes, what we went through was hard, and we are allowed to feel the pain and hurt of it as we need to.  We are also allowed to be happy in the 'now'.

Living in the 'now' can be so hard.  Especially when the pain of the past may keep us from seeing the light and happiness all around us.  We stay in the dark...in the pain...hesitating.  The 'now' though will always beckon us...call us...and invite us to be in its warmth and safety.  We just have to step towards it.  We may need the help and comfort of others at first...and should seek it.  We eventually find the strength ourselves...and come to feel that 'we don't need anybody, all we need is now' to get us there...we can step there, into the light, ourselves.  And there we will find the peace we so desperately we are looking for.

There's a Duran Duran song that speaks to this...it's called All You Need is Now.  Here are some excerpts from it...

It's all up to you now
Find yourself in the moment

When you move into the light
You're the greatest thing alive

And we will sway in the moon
The way we did
When we were younger
When we told everybody
All you need is now

You don't need anybody
All you need is now.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Focus on What You Can Do, and Think About What You Still Have if You Lose Everything

Something that CBT therapy taught me is that anxiety can tend to make you vulnerable to catastrophizing and making things bigger than they are.  Black and white thinking is also associated with this.  Things are never going to get better...I will be like this forever...nothing will change and I will be miserable forever...no matter what I do things will never get better...it's like this and will never change;  these are just a couple of examples of thoughts like this can can run through your head. For me personally, I have had to come to accept many things about myself (in therapy, they call this radical acceptance).  My anxiety disorder, which I've had my entire life, has given me some limitations.  But it has also given me strengths.  Much of this has made itself evident in about every aspect of my life...whether in relationships, in my career, in school, even down to the ability to feel safe in traffic or walking on the side of the road.  I have h...
Read more

Life Stones for Grounding

Image
Trauma can be disruptive to our lives.  It can manifest itself in our fears and bring to us emotional struggles and even paralysis.  It can also be layered.  For example, in my life, I had a traumatic childhood.  Then there was a time I went through a bad breakup and was left alone and isolated.  I also went through a period with a lot of loss and challenge that happened all at once within a short period of time...I lost two close family members, lost employment, was hospitalized, had marriage difficulties and went through a divorce. In each of these experiences it was clear that the actions (or inactions) of others, and very hard events, caused traumas in my life.  I believe that trauma, when untreated, can cause our lives harm; it can cause us to be stinted, and can rob from us the enjoyment that could be gained from otherwise healthy emotional well being.  I have seen value in trauma therapy in bringing trauma to the surface...peeling back the lay...
Read more

Mom's Stories

4/28/2024.  My mother is about to enter hospice.  Dementia has ravaged her and its clear that she has declined to the point of 'no going back' from the disease.  As I've been preparing for her funeral, I have come across things like this that offer an unedited glimpse into her and my relationship with her growing up.  There are actually many other stories that she used to tell...but for some reason this one (where she threw water on nurses at their stand) stands out.  Dated 11/28/1998.      Mom was leaning over the nurses’ station one day, acting bipolar and manic when one of the female nurses said to her, “Harrington, you need to chill out!”   Offended at this, Mom devised a plan to ‘get even’.   She walked down the hall to her bathroom, which was near her isolation room, retrieved a blue basin which she remembered had been there, ,filled it with cold water,   marched back to the nurses station and said to the nurse, “No, YOU ...
Read more