The BLS

New tool from therapy, yay!

I started doing the Bilateral Stimulation in one of my more recent sessions, and it's intense, but effective. It's tones in headphones and pulses from devices held in the hands that alternate left and right at whatever speed, intensity, and volume feels comfortable while recalling the initial traumatic event. (Obviously, there is a lot more that goes into these sessions, but those are the basics.) Last night, we were planning on working with another target, but other situations came up that needed more attention, so my therapist gave me another tool to use when I start getting into one particular OCD-like behavior: mentally punishing myself by remembering and then obsessing over mistakes or events that have been resolved.

It's simple enough in execution, and yet requires a lot of discipline to use it repeatedly to the point that it becomes beneficial long term. When some obsessive thought surfaces and becomes too difficult to deal with or get rid of, all I have to do is start tapping (I chose tapping the lateral sides of my knees with my fingers), alternating the taps just like the BLS, and once I feel like I've tapped long enough, I end with one of my other tools, my Safe Place, to reestablish the state of mind I would like to have. I've already started using it, and it's already proving effective, and hopefully more so the longer I practice it. As I was about to fall asleep, I kept beating myself up with one particular thought, and since I was so snuggled under my blankets, all I could reach (without moving my arms and losing precious warmth) was my head, so I started gently tapping at my temples, and sure enough, after a minute or so, I felt much better.

This will take sooooo much practice, as I learned (incorrectly) over many years that if I have a memory or a thought I can't let go, I deserve to be reminded of it and be punished by it and feel absolutely miserable for not being able to stop what my brain does to me. During last night's session, I found myself repeatedly talking about how, in my logic brain, I know that things take time to unlearn and the relearn, and that practicing is the only way to get better at things that I may not feel confident doing now, but all that sensible talk doesn't always hit home with me when I'm in an emotional place that feeds all the worst I believe about myself. Now that we're doing some genuine heavy lifting in our sessions (like we weren't doing that before...), it's going to take consistency on my part, but I know I'm capable of doing that.