EMDR Diaries - Chapter 1

For those of you who have the, er, pleasure (?) to follow me on social media (Twitter jenraefrances and Instagram jenraefrances very original I know!) you'll have see than I've started a treatment called EMDR (Click here  for more info about EMDR, if that's a bit wordy then a YouTube link is coming up!). 

The aim of EMDR is to help the brain re-process traumatic memories which will, in theory, 
 help stop my extreme reactions to certain stimuli and triggers. My Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) has been worsening since the summer which lead to me attemping suicide back in August (See my blog Cold Hard Facts - ***Trigger warning***). Whilst my bad memories will always be there, this treatment won't magically erase them but it will allow my brain to process the bullying, assault, loss etc correctly and hopefully lessen their impact.

I found a really useful YouTube video that explains it in a less Sci-Fi way. 

This video shows how an EDMR session works -

Before I started the treatment I was warned by my counsellor that the treatment can be tough as I'll be connecting with a lot of memories and emotions that my brain has repressed. I've been warned that I'll feel very unsettled for a number of days after each session There was also the likelihood that I'll have physical symptoms like tingling and twitches as my brain works to re-wire itself. To try and counter-act this my counsellor and I have been working on 'safe places' in my mind that I can access after the sessions to calm me such as airshows and happy memories. I have a long list of bad things to tackle, the usual suspects - bullying, loss etc so this will be a long slog. 

To start me off as gently as possible my counsellor, Helaine, has decided to start with the 'Memory Stick incident' from back in 2014. When you read any of my blogs from the summer of 2014, prior to being signed off in the Autumn, you'll be able to see the state I was left in (my blog Stuck from the time gives an idea, just bear in mind that at the time I was still working on the theory that I had Bi Polar rather than BPD). Now that I'm long gone from that job I can explain more about what went on and what the EMDR will be tackling. 

To cut a long story short whilst working for a local NHS Team I posted a memory stick to a nursing home containing patient information and it was lost in the post. This kicked off a massive incident as of course patient privacy was compromised (something that I never argued against and went out of my way to own up to), during the course of this it was decided to review my recent work and it was found that I had sent an information pack to an incorrect address (I still maintain that I was given the wrong details but that's neither here nor there). After that all of my work was scrutinised and management were constantly digging for mistakes I'd made. When I tried to stand up for myself I was told that I was "playing the mental health card" to avoid getting into trouble. The whole situation lead to my health spiralling out of control, loads of self-harming and my being signed off of work and eventually leaving. 

As we started the session Helaine asked me to bring this time to mind. I then had to watch the light bar that you saw in the video above for a few moments at a time (initially I made the mistake of trying to concentrate too hard on it and not follow the light bar but it turns out that once you've brought the memory to the front of your mind it stays there even when you're concentrating on the bar). The effect was immediate, I started having random tinglings and small pressures across my chest and throat (these are the spots where I normally 'feel stress', some people get knotted stomachs or breathlessness when they're stressed whereas mine sticks 'higher') and twinges in my shoulders.  

After the initial effects of the tinglings and pressures I actually stopped feeling anything for a little while until I suddenly got really tearful when I was struck by how much I'd loved my previous job working in the records library from 2010-2011 (you can read my memories of the time here). One of the things with the EMDR is that sudden insights will appear either during the session or in the days following about the memory you've been working on. Whilst I won't share the 'insights' I gained about my job I lost the memory stick with as they aren't pretty, I did realise that I was an easy target as I'm crap at standing up for myself or pointing out that I was the sole admin dealing with over 2000 cases, I did gain some interesting insights about my 'happy time' in the library; I realised that work was actually my 'safe space' and helped me cope with crap life threw at me at the time (my Grandad passing away, the breakdown of my 6 year relationship among other things) and still carry on smiling. I realised that I was 'mourning' that time so to speak, not just the job itself or that it was a good time in my life for travelling and having fun. But mourning the loss of that safety, positivity and most importantly the friends I left behind when I moved on, colleagues who made me feel welcome from day one and included me and, most importantly, were only ever nice to me. The ironic thing is that the only reason I left was because my hours had been cut to 3 days a week ....

The session ended with 'grounding' me again, accessing my 'happy/safe' space and putting me back into a calm mindset.

In the days following an EMDR session you can be left quite unsettled both mentally and physically (in some cases apparently you can be left twitchy or tingly for a couple of days). Physically I was fine, aside from some shoulder tension, but I've had a lot of work-related bad dreams or general anxiety dreams. The dreams have mostly been around a different job I had prior to the library when I was bullied (another reason I loved the library so much, no-one screamed across the room or down the phone at me!), having to start working there again and seeing the managers who made my life hell. I've also been quite low and tearful feeling as well as a slight stressed feeling bubbling away in the background. 

My next session will be a week Tuesday and we'll continue to work on this memory until my brain has processed it properly and it no longer brings up the emotional response anymore. After that we'll move onto other subjects which I admit to being quite nervous about, if I cried whilst working through this 'not too bad' memory lord knows how I'll be when focusing on losing Stelly or school. I want to try and keep up a blog of my EMDR experiences on the off chance that someone who's curious about the treatment or, like me, is trying it out for the first time will stumble across it in the depths of the interwebs and might find it helpful.

If the EMDR helps even just a bit then it'll be worth it, if I can have just a bit of breathing space then I can start piecing things back together a bit. It's not a cure and it won't remove my BPD, OCD and self-harming tendencies but what it can do is help unblock my brain to give me a better chance at reigning them in a bit.

Love Jen
XxxX

B is for Borderline Personality Disorder

Next up in my Mental Health Week blogs is Borderline Personality Disorder.

BPD is probably the trickiest of my 'conditions' because half the psychiatric world don't believe it exists so explaining something that half the world doesn't accept is a little challenging...

BPD is also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, a label that I absolutely detest. I find it almost insulting that a complex disorder is described as being 'emotionally unstable' when there is so much more to it than that.

BPD can take a long time to diagnose, it's commonly misdiagnosed as Bipolar or depression and whilst it comes with depressive elements they are part of a big mix of symptoms.

People often generalise BPD as being the result of abuse or traumatic experiences, and whilst being sexually assaulted and bullied both in school and the workplace certainly didn't help, I realise that I've always had certain traits of it. Things that wouldn't phase a 'normal' kid such as a supply teacher for the day would completely freak me out, being put in different groups to work was hell. As an 8 year old you just figure that everyone feels like that, the same suprise that I had as an adult when I discovered that not everyone's mood can go from sky-high or rock bottom in under a second. I'm still having to work hard to 'forgive' myself for the things that I did and felt in my teen years that I can now attribute to BPD but at the time were excruciatingly embrassing oddities.

Living with BPD can be exhausting. It has control of both my anxiety (see Monday's blog) and OCD (coming later this week), it's the reason that my attempts at CBT to combat my OCD failed as it worked its way around my attempts to 'challenge' my thought processes. Waking up each day and having no idea which direction your thoughts and moods will take throughout the course is pretty unsettling. Without exaggeration I can go from pretty chill to manic to terrified to suicidal all in the space of a morning when I'm going through a bad patch.

It makes interactions with others, in the workplace especially, tricky. You want people to see you as a rational, professional person and you can understand their confusion when the bubbly brightly dressed person they met the day before drags herself into work in her baggy black dress surrounded by a moody silence. I feel bad for putting people through this, more so my family and friends. I have a lot of anger that I carry with me, anger at the people who bullied me and assaulted me, anger at those who screamed at me across the office, worst of all the anger at those who stood by and let it happen when they could have stepped in and finally anger at myself for not 'dealing' and allowing the disorder to inform my life this way.

One of the hardest things I have to ask myself is the catchy "is it me or BPD?". It is hard to see where the BPD ends and Jen begins (and vice versa), your personality is unique and saying that it is 'disordered' raises the question do I think/feel this way/do this because it's me or because of my BPD? Is it Jen that cares lots about her family and panics if she doesn't hear from them or is it the clingy element of the BPD?

I could go on into far more depth about my BPD but I did promise mini-blogs!

In the next blog I'll be delving into the mystical world of my OCD.

Love Jen
XxxxX

The Story Of #MeToo

Today I want to tell you a story, it’s about an 11 year old girl just started Secondary School and nervous and miserable as hell. “Why can’t I just get on and fit in like everyone else?” “Or get some attention from the (rapidly forming) in-crowd and make friends with them, surely there’s room for one more” our heroine asks herself. Well dear readers her wish was granted just not in the way she thought.

It was a normal kind of day for young Jen, she’d walked in the school entrance with dread and was dutifully waiting outside her tutor room trying to make herself as invisible as possible from her now-departed friends, for they had far better things to do and far cooler people to talk to, and the rest of the class. Whilst deliberately looking away from everyone so as not to make eye contact Jen noticed a boy coming over to her, he was one of the cool popular boys, “Does he want to talk to me?” wondered Jen in shock but sadly it was not to be. In front of all his friends he walked up to Jen and roughly grabbed her butt and had a good feel between her legs whilst he had the chance much to the sneers and laughter of his friends.

It’s a story that my brain had buried deep in its recesses, covering it with other memories of bullying and embarrassment. It literally popped out during a counselling session a month or so back and now I’m ready to tell you about it.

Looking back on it a lot changed that day that would affect me from then on. When I told my parents about it in a distressed manner later on that day they were furious and went to the school the next day to see my head of year. Nothing was done, the boy in question got a detention and I lived with the repercussions for 5 more years. After the detention had been served I was mocked for ‘telling’ on him and was made to think that I’d made a fuss out of nothing and caused trouble for him. From then on despite grabs of my boobs, being felt up in a stairwell and so on I stayed silent, I tried to think that in between being told I was ugly that I  surely can’t be that ugly if some of the guys wanted to cop a feel? Plus if your boobs are being grabbed in full view of a teacher at the front of a classroom it’s ok right?

It’s only now after speaking to my counsellor that I can admit to myself that yes I was sexually assaulted and no it wasn’t ok. Admitting is technically the wrong term, it implies that I’m in the wrong for what happened and I damn well wasn’t, I can see that now. I was publically shamed by his actions and further shamed by attempting to gain justice for what happened to me. I’m starting to take ownership of what happened, I can see that it now links to a lot of my other issues. My discomfort and freaking out if people are in my personal space (put it this way I’m stuck with Liam Gallagher-esque eyebrows because last time I had them done  having the woman stand over me to thread them gave me a panic attack). It explains why in a way I hide behind being fat and feel relief that no-one can find me attractive.

It caused my greatest shame and biggest hurt, the inability to have sex without excruciating pain. Despite being in a loving relationship with my fiancée in the nearly 7 years we were together there was never an occasion that I didn’t feel like a knife was being twisted between my legs. It makes sense now, my body’s defence mechanisms were coming up, I was physically remembering what had happened even though my brain was racking itself trying to work out why I was such a frigid freak. I put up with it as I didn't want my partner to 'miss out' on what he was 'entitled' to from our relationship. 

I get told off by my counsellor when I try to say that it could have been far worse, at least I wasn’t raped etc, I’ve learnt that sexual assault is sexual assault whatever degree it is. The incidents were non-consensual sexual contact and I suffered and continue to suffer for it. I was also stuck with my abuser and other boys who felt it was ok to grab my boob etc for 5 long years without seeing any justice and being pretty much hung out to dry by the school.   When I was added to a school reunion group the guy who did it was in there, his profile picture is him with two small boys who I assume are his kids. I wonder if he remembers now what he did, whether he’s gotten over the ‘injustice’ of his detention. Mostly I hope that he brings his kids up to have more respect for women’s and girl’s bodies than he did.

#MeToo

Love JenX

xxX