Trauma Therapy

"Hi guys. The best advice that was ever given to me through my process as a survivor as an adult from a priest was to get EMD or trauma therapy. I can remember sitting there like ‘what is this old man talking about? I don't need any type of trauma therapy.’ Well guess what, I definitely did because I've been diagnosed with complex trauma and I'm not a fan of cognitive therapy and so when I was introduced to EMDR, which is Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing therapy, I knew that I had a chance and I needed to give it a try.

And this is how it works: you basically create a safe place for yourself. And my safe place that I created was about 4:45 in the morning. I love to hunt and I'm from Southwest Louisiana, so the sky's pink, the birds are coming in, it's just the smell of dirt. I love hunting ducks and that was my safe spot, so we created this safe spot. We created a trunk, and then I had to go through my timeline from the first time I ever had any type of trauma in my life and you work backwards, so you work from the first one. You talk about where the emotion is. Sometimes people give you these and this is what I have my experience, I had these buzzers in my hands and they buzz at a certain temperature and we go back to the memory and we create it to where you're basically going back to that younger self and asking what that younger self needs, and when I tell you guys it was life-changing, it was life-changing for me, although it took a year for me to have a breakthrough. It usually doesn't happen that way with some people, but everyone's different. You know, EMDR may not be the modality that works.

That's why there's so many different techniques out there that I urge everyone who has been victimized to see what works for you and when you figure out what works for you, you realize ‘wow that's who I am, you're that powerful human being,’ so I suggest you create a space for yourself, sit down and ask yourself if this is what you're wanting to choose. Because at the end of the day, in order to protect myself I really had to do this because if I was the 25 year-old me like I shared, I would be in out of control, like spiraling out of control. I would not be here sharing great tools and techniques to use. I would not be a good person and so I'm glad that I was able to identify, okay, let's try this because it mattered to my marriage, it mattered to my children, and it mattered to me because at the end of the day, and I teach this to everyone, if we're not happy with ourselves, how in the world can we make anyone around us happy? Happiness is a choice. You gotta choose it. Every morning when I wake up putting those positive affirmations in my head telling myself ‘you know what, today is going to be a fantastic day.’ You really gotta seriously and look, every day is not good. I get it. I'm a human being. I'm human, but you've got to create a method that works for you in order for you to be okay because this is a lifetime sentence. I don't know if today is going to be a good day, tomorrow may be a shitty day and I'll have to pick up those tools and do whatever I need to do in order to feel safe. But I'm hoping whatever you choose, whatever works for you, do the work because you know what? The more work you do, the more healing that you provide yourself, you'll realize that you have a voice too and you have a story and you may be helping others who do not have the capacity or the ability to find ways in order to heal from someone taking away your innocence, taking away something that we all should be shining as human beings. So again, EMDR was phenomenal, may not be for everyone. There's so many cool things out there now, instead of just taking prescription drugs, that I highly suggest and maybe you do need to take something just realize that this is just a process and be kind to yourself and take one day at a time because you know what? It is okay. You're gonna be okay and now that there's this amazing site, again now you can go and just explore and find ways that others may be like you and you try them out. Start somewhere even if it's just painting, even if it's just going ride a bike - whatever you do, be kind to yourself."