From Sideways to Standing: EMDR, Recovery, and Waking Up
I can feel my heart pounding as I continue to pace around whilst attempting to breathe the way my psychologist had taught me. My earliest childhood memories had resurfaced and so had I. I had been disassociating on and off for my entire life. Thirty-five years had hit me all at once...all because of one sentence my son said over the phone during his recent visit with my mother, “I woke up sideways in the bed.”
I was catapulted back to the early 90’s in a small brick house at the bottom of a hill. The room was green, maybe blue. The lights were on, and I was lying on my back with the sheets to my side, wondering where the marks on my body had come from and why I kept waking up sideways in the bed. I thought it was because of a song I’d sang with my friend (I still believed in magic). Then I was sent back to winter. I was smaller. I was being held by my father and the Christmas parade was happening just down from the gas station across the street from city hall. I can see our breath in the air...then suddenly I am alone behind the gas station. I’d been left there. All of the memories kept flooding in, and I realized where I had failed. My abusers had abused me, then the system to gain access to my only son. They never got professional help, and my son had been displaying all of the signs...I was worried and upset.
I realized that while my ego had been driving my car for the better part of five years, my soul was pure. I’d stood on the side of the road and protested because it was the best I could do at the time to somehow show up for my son and pray that the truth would prevail...it did as the protest was picked up by the media and had gone viral. Then I was threatened again and with nothing much left of my spirit or my life...I went into hiding and spiraled to the depths of hell. My trauma caused a spiritual evacuation, and I had become a walking shell. My recovery had caused an awakening, and I had picked up right where I had left off.... on the side of the road with a sign.
