EMDR Saved my Life

Black Monday

London, September 23rd, 2012. I couldn’t enjoy the glass of wine I was having with my MBA classmates. I’d just pitched a new business. Investors were interested. I must be tired, I thought.

I woke up the following morning and couldn’t get to work. I wasn’t depressed or sad. I was pacing my room, angry for not being able to push myself like before.

The daughter of a farmer who didn’t finish high school, I was fortunate to get scholarships, study engineering in France, and earn my Ph.D. in Science from the National University of Singapore. I started my career with GE and climbed the corporate ladder in Asia and the US. I started an MBA with Columbia Business School and the London Business School. I’d looked forward to launching my business. What was wrong with me? I wondered.

I went for runs to release a rage I didn’t know I could feel out of my system. A week later, I boarded my flight back to Boston. The plan was to fly back to the US, pack, and relocate to Shanghai.

I’d barely fastened my seat belt when I started crying.

The Fortress

I don’t know where the words came from, but they’ve always been there: crying is for losers.

I was an eighteen-month-old when my mother died. My father suffered from depression, and my grandmother took care of me until she passed away when I was three. My father couldn’t talk about my mother, and traces of her disappeared, except for a wedding photo in my father’s bedroom. I started repeating what I’d been told: “I was young when she died. It’s no big deal.” I started believing it. My father was emotionally and mentally absent. I learned early on that the way to go was to bury the pain, toughen up, and move on.

When I was seven, my father remarried a woman who turned out to be abusive. My brother died in an accident. By that time, my mind had learned to wipe out events it couldn’t comprehend. My father divorced after a year.

In my twenties, I met friends who showed me another way was possible. I started sharing about my mother. My aunt died in an accident. My uncle and grandfather committed suicide.

In my thirties, I started therapy and talked about all the relatives who had died. Cold sweats and unexplained physical pains appeared. I started struggling with food.

October 2011, my nephew, 17, suffered a train accident. I rushed to France and the hospital.

My nephew, whom I’d seen make his first steps, was in the ER, in a coma, plugged into more machines than I could imagine would fit into an ER room. We all reverted to our childhood coping mechanisms. I held the tears through six months of hospital visits and the MBA.

March 2012, my nephew started feeling better. I started launching a business in Shanghai, traveling between London, France, and Shanghai and barely stopping. Passion turned into a drive to flee the wave of buried sadness I knew unconsciously would catch up with me.

On the plane back to Boston, still crying, it dawned on me that the fortress I’d erected as a child was starting to crumble.

The Past Surfaces

Along with the tears came insight. I saw how I’d been seeking in my career the praise and attention I’d sought from my father. I landed in Boston, still crying and writing.

The first night I dreamed about my mother.

The second night, I dreamed about my brother.

I was seven, standing in front of the body of my deceased brother, my six-foot-three father, standing on my right, asked me to kiss my brother goodbye. I was afraid of death and wanted to flee. But I knew I couldn’t escape my father. I stepped forward, closed my eyes, held my breath, tensed my body, and kissed my brother. I felt a coldness, the coldness of death, seep into every cell of my body.

In Boston, I was emotional, remembering long-forgotten memories. Friends suggested I see a therapist. I didn’t see the need since memories kept surfacing. I just needed to let things run their course. Days turn into weeks. I gave up on a business I loved.

I spent three months journaling, going for runs, and refusing to see friends because I felt so emotional and vulnerable. Dreams brought a lot of insight. Nightmares about death showed up in month two. Meditating helped me go through panic attacks.

The flow of memories died down after three months. I left the US for Africa and Dubai, where I took on various CEO roles.

Flashbacks

I realized I’d forgotten periods of my childhood. I was mad that I could remember thousands of Chinese characters but couldn’t remember the family name of the woman my father had married and the upstairs section of her house where we lived for one year.

One day, Monique Josselin showed up, with her name, not in my writing but in front of my eyes during a swim far at sea. Her face, white like death, and menacing eyes froze my blood. I panicked. I thought that I would drown. Her image faded. I swam back to shore.

Flashbacks of abuse started waking me up screaming. I’d traveled the world alone but grew afraid of nightmares, couldn’t sleep in my bed, and slept on my couch for two months.

Hypnosis helped me tame my fears, but it didn’t bring the feeling of closure I sought. The nightmares disappeared. Energy healing, ayahuasca, MDMA brought a lot of insight but brought no memories of the “madhouse.”

In 2018, I’d moved back to the US and lived in New York City when the intrusive thoughts appeared. I would be spending time with friends when scenes from the past flashed in front of my eyes. My mind blanked out. I missed sections of conversations. I could get rid of anger with long swims, of panic attacks with meditation, of sadness with tears. I didn’t know what to do with intrusive thoughts.

I went back to therapy. When I started unraveling the deaths of relatives, the therapist looked concerned.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s a lot. It will take a long time to process all of this.”

I guess she meant well. But I felt judged, let down.

The therapy sessions were dreadful. I left the office tormented, sad, and frustrated from making little progress. I had to walk twenty blocks back home to clear my system. I debated about what to do. I was worried that stopping was avoiding confronting the pain of the healing process. But I also felt stupid to persevere when the sessions hurt rather than helped me. I stopped therapy after three months.

Hopelessness

One day, a writing teacher told me I suffered from PTSD. I’d never thought about PTSD. I looked healthy and functional. I brushed the comment away.

But I had to admit that gone was this joy of living I used to feel before the burnout. I’d grown afraid of a fear I couldn’t explain. I’d grown less self-confident, was often on edge, and my body became limp at times. Some fears had crept in without my noticing them. I couldn’t switch off my phone anymore on Saturdays, afraid of missing a call announcing someone had died. The intrusive thoughts kept showing up. I hovered in a gray zone, afraid the nightmares and flashbacks would show up again. I was dying a slow death.

EMDR

Until I came across a New York Times piece on fear, PTSD, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a therapy I’d never heard about. I found this EMDR and moving of fingers in front of someone’s eye bizarre but thought the New York Times must have done its research.

I went in search of a therapist.

“Can’t talk. Please text,” texted the first therapist I called.

I asked him to call.

“Here’s the link for you to book a session. It’s $300.” He texted.

Eventually, I found Noel, who spent time answering questions.

I’d grown skeptical, though.

“I have no faith in EMDR,” I told Noel during our first session. “Please prove me wrong,” I added.

Noel and I agreed to start with events in the middle of the SUDs scale and began with the death of my mother and brother. We moved on to my father, the “madhouse,” the abuse. The sessions were hard. I was left spent, often unable to work. I went for walks in nature. I slept a lot and had vivid dreams. I was blown away by how much I could process. I started feeling better after six sessions. We had fourteen sessions, mainly weekly.

I don’t think EMDR is the panacea. Like with most therapies, the efficacy of EMDR depends on the therapist’s experience. Multiple therapies have helped me during my healing journey. But still, to this day, EMDR has been, for me, the most efficacious way to heal from traumas.

I’m grateful for meeting Noel, the time, and the money I had for sessions.

Access to proper mental healthcare is often the exception rather than the rule.

This piece is the first in a series of posts on tools that have helped me during my healing journey. If this topic is of interest to you, please visit www.akesahealth.com and sign up for our newsletter.