Today feels like it will be a good day. I was listening more to "The Body Keeps the Score." I've gotten to the part about EMDR, and it reminded me about my own EMDR experiences. I really relate to the bit about having done EMDR somehow allowing my memory of the rabbit incident (Edit to add: 'the rabbit incident' refers to a traumatic incident from my childhood) to become just a memory. Thinking about that -- about how EMDR really, in a short time, allowed that transformation to happen has given me hope that maybe the same transformation could happen with my other memories.

It also got me thinking about what's going on with S leaving. There's a bit in the book where the author talks about how traumatized he felt when he started training in EMDR because a bunch of people had suddenly left his life. First, it helped to hear that he experienced all of that as traumatic as well -- and then, he started talking about how he processed it in EMDR and how making all the connections between his intense experience of these people leaving as traumatic really connected to other parts of his past and life.

And I started thinking...possibly, at least some of the trauma of S leaving is really rooted in my past. And, like in the book, I can kind of see a pattern of repetition of the trauma: the trauma of abandonment, I mean -- throughout my life, even now with you going on a trip...some of the feelings I'm feeling about your trip seem to kind of just be...shadow feelings...replays of feelings from my past with S, and not really about YOU or the reality of right now. Maybe the intensity of S leaving is partly related to past memories that are somehow not just memories and not to what is actually happening right this moment -- maybe some of the intensity is like... part of the pattern... it's coming from unprocessed stuff in the past, not what is happening right now.

Like if I could process it the same way I processed the rabbit memory, maybe it would help. I know that you don't do EMDR, but I'm wondering if you have any other ideas that are kind of similar that would allow me to do that same thing --- connecting the dots of the past/whatever comes up related to what's going on now. And if I could even do that with my other past traumas. Just...I got this thought of "what if all of these things could just be memories like the rabbit memory..." And then I realized...that was kind of supposed to be the POINT of my EMDR therapy -- just that therapist and I never got to get beyond the ONE memory. I think it would be a huge relief if ALL of these things could just be memories like the rabbit one...