Thinking about all of this--still a work in progress, to be sure.

But I think I'm getting closer to understanding what deeply concerns me about modalities like EMDR, and why I am so very glad it wasn't so popular when I was in therapy. (I'm quite sure that my T would not have supported its use, but there may have been pressure on us to adopt it.)

I experienced flashbacks, PTSD, dissociation: everything that is more and more being addressed through EMDR-type treatments. But for me, being forced to vividly re-live past trauma would seem like a re-traumatization so as to "rewrite" the felt result, and this time around, "win" the battle. De-power the memories so as to separate from them. But at what cost? How much of my self would have been sacrificed? I didn't want to fend off the memories, nor weaken them; I wanted to learn to embrace them in all their power to strengthen me.

By exploring the feelings of the memories and defusing their negative hold on me by accepting them for how they contributed to my development, I regained power. The embracing. I never felt the self-hate in therapy that so many here on PC painfully write about. Frustration, yes; self-hate, no. I needed a lot of help to recognize my strengths and to believe in them, but I was never led to hate the experiences that were very much a part of that strength. I also think that my life-long depression was a reaction to my powerlessness; it hasn't come back since.

Don't anyone misunderstand me as saying that abuse was "good" for me--nothing could be further from the truth. Simply that it was what it was--a series of cruel assaults on an innocent child that should never have happened, but did. But it was never about "who would I have (better) been had these things not happened to me."

Thanks for letting me think out loud.