Brainspotting and Traumatic Reenactment
My therapist and I recently ventured into the therapy modality called brainspotting. We have been using EMDR with some success to help me process the trauma from my childhood. As we began to work on the trauma-related dissociation I was experiencing, my therapist suggested this new modality as a way to pinpoint the exact location of where the trauma was stored in my brain.
I am not going to lie; I was really skeptical at first. The thought that staring at a pointer would resolve decades of trauma stored in my brain seemed too good to be true. Nevertheless, I adore and wholeheartedly trust my therapist, so I reluctantly agreed to try it.
Our first session was called an intensive, which means 3-hours of therapy in back-to-back sessions. I’m not sure why I thought that was a good idea, but again, I trusted her, so I did. We did three different targets, which will take too long to handle in a single blog, so I will break this into two parts (one target I am not willing to share at this time).
The target I want to share with you today is related to a near-drowning accident that I experienced when I was ~ 4 years old. The gist of the story is that I left the patio at my aunt’s house to feed the ducks (they had a house on the lagoon), and I fell in the water. I don’t remember falling in the water, and for years, I didn’t remember much about it, but the story was repeated every time family got together. After a while, I started having flashes of memories pop up, but they weren’t connected.
I remember being in the water and trying to keep my head above water, but, of course, I couldn’t swim. I remember some teenagers jumping off the pier a couple of houses down from where I was, and I also remember calling out for help. I remember the green-brown water over my head, seeing the light above the water, and thinking I was going to die.
Obviously, I didn’t die, or I wouldn’t be writing this. The story goes that the teenage neighbor girl saw me fall in the water and rescued me. She brought me soaking wet to my aunt’s front door and rang the doorbell. I don’t remember any of that, but I’m pretty sure I was in shock at that point. I am sure I must’ve given my poor aunt a heart attack. Can you imagine her having to tell my mother that I drowned in the lagoon? Thankfully, God spared me.
Amazingly, this incident never caused me to be afraid of water or not want to swim, or even go onto the dock again. As the memories started to surface (pun intended), I became aware of some strange behavior I was exhibiting in the workplace, and I had no idea why I was doing those things.
When I first read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, I balked at the part where he talked about how, according to Freud, trauma victims had the compulsion to repeat portions of their trauma as an “unconscious attempt to get control over a painful situation and that they eventually could lead to mastery and resolution.” (Kolk MD, Bessel van der. The Body Keeps the Score (p. 32). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.) In my mind, why would anyone want to repeat something traumatic repeatedly?
But that is precisely what I saw…in myself. At work, I would always stand on the periphery in crowds and was compulsively “trying to get noticed.” I realized that I was trying to make sure I could be seen so that someone could save me.
I also heard myself repeatedly saying, “I’m drowning” at work, which led to being overwhelmed and unable to function. I would get upset when my boss or co-workers didn’t rescue me. It kept coming up in weird ways, so I thought, let’s deal with this target. Sure. Why not?
We started by talking about the sensation I was having in my body around, feeling like I was drowning in emails. Once that was activated in my body, my therapist held up this pointer and moved it horizontally across my visual field until I located the spot that was the most activated and fine-tuned it by moving the pointer vertically. (You absolutely can’t make this crap up. It really works.)
Once we found the spot, all I had to do was stare at this dumb pointer. It does feel dumb to stare at a pointer and think something amazing will happen, but that is exactly what happened. The feeling of helplessness rose to the surface, as well as the words, “I’m gonna die.” There was a resignation that I could NOT save myself. I didn’t know how to swim, and there was nothing I could do.
Then, I could hear the voice of the Spirit of God in my ear, reminding me He was with me, and all I needed to do was to call out to Him…so I did. He told me I was never designed to save myself; that was His job. He showed me that He was the one that sent that neighbor girl to rescue me. He never lost sight of me. He was waiting for me to stop struggling in my own strength to save myself before He sent help. That is exactly what they teach in lifeguard school.
That was super powerful, but my therapist told me to stick with it to see if anything else came up. I could hear this voice saying, “giving up is failure.” Again, I could hear the voice of the Lord speaking the words of truth to me. He said, I didn’t give up; I called out to the One that could help me, and He did. He has all the resources I need at His disposal.
I have lived with this compulsion to try to save myself for five decades. I wouldn’t let people help me because I had to save myself. I wouldn’t ask people to help me because that was admitting defeat. All this time, I’ve had the complete regimen of resources of the God of the universe at my disposal, and I refused to ask for help because I felt like I had to save myself.
I was absolutely amazed that the compulsion was gone. I mean gone, gone. I tried for a week to re-activate that spot again, and I couldn’t. Wow!! I cannot explain it, but I will tell you that I have already seen evidence of it being gone in how I’ve reached out to people for help and didn’t try to do things on my own. I can’t tell you how many times over the years my therapist would say to me that I don’t have to do this alone, but I still felt like I had to, but not anymore. I feel more open to asking for and receiving help from others. I don’t feel like I have to do it all alone.
It is so freeing to finally realize that the God of the Universe knows exactly where I am at all times. He never loses track of me. He is waiting for me to call out to Him, and He is ALWAYS there when I do. He has all the resources of the universe at His disposal. I was never meant to save myself; that is His job. He really does save…spiritually, physically, and emotionally.
What an amazing experience and that was just the second target of three. The depth that this got to in my brain was truly remarkable. I am encouraged to continue this journey and see how the Lord can use this modality in my healing journey.
As always, you don’t have to walk this healing journey alone. If you want to work with me, you can schedule your complimentary discovery session by clicking here. You’ve got this! I believe in you.
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