First off, I want to say I almost didn’t respond to this because i am so very aware of the fact that nothing i have experienced can bring my awareness of pain and trauma anywhere near what you have endured and will continue to endure from losing your beloved daughter. Know that my heart aches for you and your family every time I read one of your pieces.
I decided to go ahead, however, because of the multiple mentions you made regarding therapy, specifically the “rehashing” mentions. There comes a point where no amount of talk therapy will move a person forward. I wanted to ask if you have ever had a therapist discuss EMDR with you. You say several times that you are “stuck” in that moment of Ana’s death, and EMDR’s specific purpose is to help get a person “unstuck” from specific traumatic events. It is not talk therapy, so no rehashing. If you’ve not tried it, may I recommend you look into it sometime? I’ve provided a link, it’s just the webMD page, but it gives a fair explanation.
I have used EMDR for certain traumatic events in my past, and for me, the beauty of it was that it didn’t attempt to erase the events from memory, or lessen their importance. It just gave me the ability to recall them without the usual accompaniment of unbearable grief. The grief is still there, but now I can bear it. I don’t LIVE in it anymore.
As I mentioned before, I cannot imagine your personal grief and am not trying to compare my experience to yours, I just hope to offer maybe a different approach that may one day allow you some small reprieve from the constant enormity of what has happened in your own life.
With love,
Elizabeth
