A nightmare woke me up this morning around 1:30 – couldn’t fall back to sleep after an hour or so so I’m up.
Someone was using text messages to hack into my brain – their little profile pic showed it was the Bones villain Christopher Pelant, a very smart computer guy who makes other peoples lives hell. He taunted me in the message a few times, I’d close it and another would open up again. I turned off the wifi and it was there again… pop, a new message from the hacker guy.
I felt as if he was inside my mind trying to erase important data that I needed. I had an image of a tall brunette woman with an axe chopping through walls that were made of magazine paper. “It’s gone, I’ll find it and you’ll never even know it was yours” she said.
I tried to close the chat window again and it just wouldn’t close – Pelant taunted me again, his profile pic laughing at me.
A friend grabbed my hand and said – “shut it all down, shut it all down before it’s too late.” but my other hand went to close the chat window… he squeezed my wrist and yanked out the power cord.
and I woke up
I was kept awake by the thought that maybe someone was really hacking into my brain – like on Johnny Mnemonic and they were taking something valuable. Then I realized I don’t really have anything valuable… so I started obsessing about work…
It’s been a very busy week at the office – I’ve had more meetings that I like to have (1 is more than I’d like to have). While all the meetings were productive (if entirely too long) they kept me from doing the things I regularly do.. which annoys the heck out of me.
I’m a creature of habit at home and at the office. On Monday’s I process the mail most of the day, on Tuesday’s I respond to all the stuff I didn’t get to respond to on Monday as I was busy, on Wednesdays I water the plants… and so on. It’s more than that of course, but if you throw a meeting into the mix it throws the rest of me off… and then if that meeting runs long I just want to scream and holler at everybody.
I have to play certain games at the office too – I’m sure we all do. You have to be nice to this person, that person is extra sensitive, when this person says “this” they mean “that”. There are days when “I hate people” is more serious than others.
Unscheduled interruptions and/or poorly planned ones where I have to rush to get materials ready for a scheduled meeting – that’s just a serious pet peeve. If we scheduled it – why didn’t we know we needed these things then. If I’m running late because I’m busy making copies…. ugh I want the whole month to be over at that point. Hate, hate, hate being late.
We do have some new employees that are giving me hope. I train a lot of people and many of them don’t make it. So many people come into the office saying they want to work, to learn to be useful… but then they don’t put forth any efforts to do so. The recent addition are a nice change from the deluge of disappointments we had. Hopefully we’ll get more of that stock.
A friend of mine wrote a book and sent me an early release copy. I don’t think of him as a writer – I think of him as a fitness guy and a was once married to my best friend guy. I read the book
It was actually really good. He used his own personal experience of something that wasn’t right… and he shared it and also shared how to protect yourself from ending up in that situation and/or what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation. I am very proud of him for doing this and have told him so. (that’s my friend in the middle there, my best friend’s Dad is to his right) Its for sale now on Amazon – not expensive or anything. Really found it to be practical advice for anyone in the country.
It does however make me feel like an idiot for not writing my stuff down in a book form. [see how I’ve cleverly made this all about me?] I’ve been writing in my blog for 11 years now and writing other things too… I should really do something about that.
I decided earlier this year to see a therapist – as I’ve made some changes to my life and wanted verification that I was ok. Seemed silly, but it was a good thing.
The first therapist I saw I didn’t like much… the second one was nice and we talked about a lot of things. I told him about something that happened in my youth that had changed me. He sat up in his chair and told me that it was possible to correct that situation with a therapy called EMDR.
Here’s how I understand it – when you experience a trauma your brain can overwrite some things. A good example is like being outside of your body watching something happen to you – you separate your conscious from trauma as if it doesn’t happen to you. PTSD, trauma, abuse… I’m not the expert on this I’m the patient… read this:
For Laypeople:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.
More than 30 positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR therapy. Some of the studies show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder after only three 90-minute sessions. Another study, funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. In another study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. There has been so much research on EMDR therapy that it is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization and the Department of Defense. Given the worldwide recognition as an effective treatment of trauma, you can easily see how EMDR therapy would be effective in treating the “everyday” memories that are the reason people have low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and all the myriad problems that bring them in for therapy. Over 100,000 clinicians throughout the world use the therapy. Millions of people have been treated successfully over the past 25 years.
EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, he asks the client to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use his eyes to track the therapist’s hand as it moves back and forth across the client’s field of vision. As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, “I survived it and I am strong.” Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR therapy result not so much from clinician interpretation, but from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes. The net effect is that clients conclude EMDR therapy feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed. As a natural outcome of the EMDR therapeutic process, the clients’ thoughts, feelings and behavior are all robust indicators of emotional health and resolution—all without speaking in detail or doing homework used in other therapies.
He recommended I see a specialist in this… and my insurance covers this, which is great. So I did and have started this process.
I have always talked about past events as “I’ve dealt with this in therapy and don’t need to focus on this anymore”. That’s what I did when I was in both drug and alcohol treatments – it was in the past and there was nothing to be done, I wont talk about it.
During this therapy what I’ve found is that I haven’t dealt with it at all. During the trauma as a kid I turned off a reaction. I remember actually like reaching out and turning it off… it sounds crazy.. but since that moment I can’t do something that I once could do. (I’m being very vague here, and that’s rather unusual for me, but I’m writing elsewhere about it and it’s very sensitive to me – I’m embarrassed by it and that’s a new sensation for me).
This therapy I’ve had to look at things from an adult perspective – when I had therapy for these issues I was still a child and was looking at it from those eyes:
“I should have known better” or “why didn’t I do something” and “I’m a monster”
Now I can look at see that I was a child – and despite popular opinion, I’m not Superman. I was a child trying to deal with adult situations using
While it’s been interesting and I’ve been dealing with this stuff – it also stirs up a lot of stuff that I don’t usually think about. It makes me take a second look at some behaviors and wonder what I can do. This might have something to do with the nightmare that woke me today… I’m trying to change my brain… and my brain may be fighting back 🙂
I’m still hopeful though… I’ve managed to not cry, but it’s almost happened a few times in therapy… no matter how much therapy I have I’m pretty sure crying is never a good thing.
After passing my insurance license exam I’ve decided i haven’t been through enough hell… I’m now studying for my CiSR designation (it’s an insurance thing). Which means studying for a good long while and passing 5 of 9 tests… if I pass all 9 I’d become “elite” but that doesn’t matter to me.
Most of what I’ve been studying so far has been about Commercial General Liability and I know a lot of that already from work, the test and some classes I’ve taken.
I am attacking insurance education like I did Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m reading what I can get my hands on, I want to know the rules and the structures and, sadly, I get frustrated when other people don’t do the same… I’m a judger.. it’s true.
I like what I do and where I work so I’ll keep trying to do that well and learn as much as I can.
This was a lot of information I guess… some other stuff going on I didn’t write about, I’ll get to that soon. I did actually start to write a book recently – I jumped right into the mess to start and we’ll see where that takes me – I struggle with timelines and dialogue and I wonder if timelines matter, write now… sort later.
Book of Jamez 
Hi Jamez – thanks for sharing about not only the day to day things that consume all of us in one way or another as well as the deeper stuff like EMDR therapy. As it turns out, I’ve also recently been confronted with the fact that things centering around traumatic experiences I thought I’d dealt with in the past are still, in fact, very much still around, riding shotgun next to my sober, healthier and more…confident self. It’s very disconcerting, to say the least!
And, I did cry when talking with my shrink about it – but I’m a cryer by nature. I’m not sure I’ve accepted that wholeheartedly, but I’ve given up trying to fight it anymore, so…that’s something, right? Haha
Hope to hear more in the future about how you feel EMDR’s been working for you, and take care.
🙂 Bobbi C.
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Hi Bobbi, thanks for the note. I hadn’t ever heard about EMDR before this recent stuff. I asked some Psychologist friends about it before I started and they advised it was legit (I was a bit concerned as it seems very far fetched).
With the therapy we’ve already managed to lessen some of the feeling I’ve had about my step dad, who used to beat on my mother… which is pretty good cause I think he’s an asshole, but I have less stress about it.
The main issue is still in the background but we’re getting there. It’s been amazing.
There is nothing wrong with crying (so they tell me) I just don’t like doing it.
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