Thoughts from an Amateur Therapy Attendee

“Therapy is hard. It’s so hard. It rips open parts of me I didn’t know were there and, instead of patching it up, we delve deeper into the ugly, bloody bits and leave the wound open to bleed and fester.”

Only crazy people go to therapy. Only crazy people lie on couches and let their problems ooze out of them in tangled knots of psychological hurt. Only crazy people are subject to the faux concern of professional coddlers that pose the provoking question of “now, how did that make you feel?”. Only crazy people are afflicted with therapy conducive issues: an inability to stop scratching the skin behind their ears, an insatiable anger that causes them to moan and shake, an overwhelming anxiety that has them curled in a ball rocking, rocking, rocking back and forth. Therapy was an idea confined to meticulously arranged rooms and condescending question askers that I felt confident I would never enter into. Ever. Because if I did… well, that would mean I was crazy.

When I was little my family had a dog named Scout. His immense energy and surges of animalistic movement would often make me nervous... but I thought that was probably normal. And then, somewhere in my vague recollections of the past, a shift occurred. A shift from a nervous flutter of the heart when a dog jumped up to lick me to a full fledged panic when a dog so much as barked in my direction. It was embarrassing. Everyone I knew had a dog or loved dogs or wished they had a dog. And I would cross the street to avoid walking next to one. No one understood my inexplicable caution. “How could you not like dogs?!” people would stutter incredulously. “They’re so cute, and cuddly, and loyal” and I just couldn’t find the words to make them understand. So I kept my fear underwraps. I was convinced it would dissolve or lessen (or something) if I just gave it enough time. I knew my trepidation was irrational but I couldn’t control my irrepressible panic at the sight of the four-legged creature. It didn’t matter how long or hard I reasoned with myself.

My mom said therapy. I froze. I laughed. And then my thoughts spiraled out of control. I was one of those “crazy” people. And my mom knew it. I was going to lie on a couch and confess this ridiculous, irrational, stupid fear to a stranger. I was in the same group of people that scratched at their ears and cried on the floor… This was going to be a part of who I was. I crossed the line from “Therapy? What a joke.” to “Therapy? Yeah, I go there every Tuesday.” I couldn’t fathom a world in which I was one of the crazy people that needed help. Though the evidence was stacking up against me with every panicked encounter with a dog. And when I told my friends about the potential of entering therapy they mirrored my initial reaction with a laugh and incredulous eyes. Before I could back out or find the words to plead my case, a therapist was found, a date and time were picked, and a resigned realization that “this is really happening” settled in my mind. I had no idea what to expect, I just prayed we weren’t starting with exposure therapy.

I worked up all my courage and drove myself to the appointment, determined to prove I was fine, far from crazy, and capable of handling this ‘minor’ inconvenience on my own. I walked into the small office, head held high, and was met by an excited black lab. I thought I might pass out. As I was nervously backing away and stammering out a “no, please, please back up” and feeling pathetic, the secretary came rushing forward, eyes wide, exclaiming “oh my gosh, you’re her! I’m so sorry!” and hurried the dog away with frequent, worried glances over her shoulder. With that experience setting the stage for the afternoon and leaving me with a pounding heart, I entered my first therapy session. I cried through the whole thing. I have no idea why. The exercises, the questions asked, the experience of confiding in a stranger; it was all foreign and uncomfortable to me.

After that emotional first session I was determined to keep my feelings in check by reasserting a cynical attitude. I would think ‘Wow. She’s asking about my feelings again. How original’ or ‘How on earth am I supposed to remember how I felt at 2 years old?’. After putting this minimum amount of effort into my sessions I was struck with an epiphany. I realized that if I was going to be dogmatic about the matter and avoid feeling deep emotions… there was really no point in continuing to go to therapy. And, as much as it felt uncomfortable and awkward, I didn’t have any other ideas on how to conquer my fear of dogs.

When I went back this time, I decided to ask some questions rather than just stumbling in confusing circles. What I learned was fascinating. It was terrible to not know what we were trying to do and what progress would look like. Here are the fundamentals of the method I am currently employing to get better. It’s called EMDR therapy. This stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The way my therapist explained it to me goes like this; EMDR therapy works to replicate the rapid movement of the eyes when a body is in the deepest cycle of sleep, REM. REM actually stands for ‘rapid eye movement’ to refer to the motion of the eyes under the eyelids. Recent studies have linked the unconscious movement of the eyes in this state of sleep to the body’s way of processing the events of the day. During a session, my therapist will have me think of a disturbing moment connected to my fear of dogs and have my body recall the feelings and thoughts of that moment. They will then pull out a red ‘wand’ and swing it back and forth while I follow it with my eyes. In doing so, they are trying to build a bridge between my left and right brain. When you experience a moment, your right brain is receiving feedback from your body. Sensations, feelings, tastes, etc. Your left brain has the job of processing this feedback and putting a sort of ‘time stamp’ on it thereby rendering the moment simply a past memory. When you experience a traumatic moment, your right brain is flooded with too much information, so much that your left brain can’t process it all as it’s happening. Because of this, that moment doesn’t receive a timestamp and the brain (specifically the amygdala, where fear resides) is constantly scanning the surroundings for similar circumstances so it can trigger the ‘fight or flight’ response. With EMDR therapy, the goal is to focus on the disturbing event and give the left brain a chance to put the ‘time stamp’ on it so the amygdala can stop registering the event as a constant danger.

From this tumultuous experience I have learned a thing or two. The most important one being that therapy is for anyone who needs help with circumstances beyond their control. Therapy is not exclusively for those we lump in the ‘crazy’ category. And fear of being seen as odd, or different, or crazy can stop us from seeking the help we need. Through our unwillingness to abandon the common therapy stereotype, we alienate ourselves from potential help and risk having our untended wounds continuously bleeding into our day to day lives. Going to therapy is not a sentence of exile. It’s simply a way of accepting help.

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