How EMDR helps my BPD

I have been to three different therapists.

I went to my first therapist during my senior year of high school, when I was 17. I had begged for my dad to let me go to therapy for a while. I do not think he is anti-therapy, but he is anti-admitting when he is wrong. Parents create this social stigma that they are at fault for whatever mental illness manifestations come of their child. They are not wrong that circumstances they contributed to in childhood may have exacerbated these issues, but they continue their denial in a way that is detrimental to their child’s health. They do not want to be the town’s gossip in which their kid is the one that is crazy.

During this three month window with therapist number one, I just talked about my problems. At that time, I was stressed about applying to colleges. The sessions often centered around this stress and my fear of death. They were very surface level. The therapist worked at a government sponsored center for adolescent mental health. As such, the workload of these therapists was immense and often a place of checklists. Some of those questions appearing on their lists included: “Is the patient feeling suicidal?” “Is the patient able to complete day-to-day tasks?” and “Is the patient in touch with reality?” The aim of this therapy is to root out the major mental disorders, and if the patient is not at the point of a mental breakdown, they let them have resources once a month.

Therapist number two came at the end of my first semester at ETSU. I had come to the therapist under the pretense of gender exploration. Those were not the talks the therapist and I began to have a month in. By month two, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Two days before discharge, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. The talk therapy of therapist number two was not helping. We would talk about the issues and determine steps I should take to solve my issues, but I never took them. 

There is a symptom of BPD called splitting. This term describes an event of extreme love to extreme hatred of another person by the BPD afflicted person. Often, this can happen in the span of hours. I understand the meaning and the causes of this. I also understand how I should react when this sense of splitting occurs, but I do not. While in this state, it is impossible for me to understand the inner mechanics; all training that happens in talk therapy is thrown out of the window. A combination of mistrust and the pandemic throwing therapy services online caused me to leave therapist number two.

My third therapist, who I am currently seeing, practices Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. EMDR therapy attacks the roots of all issues and traumatic experiences. BPD is sometimes a result of traumatic childhood experiences, which is my case. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is another mental illness treated by this form of therapy.

The term talk therapy is easily understood–it is what TV shows often employ to reveal a deeper secret or meaning behind a character’s motivation. EMDR is different. It is part talk therapy, part meditation. 

During a typical session with my therapist, I will walk in, discuss some of the issues of my week and then jump into the therapy. At the onset of determining which memory to process, my therapist will ask, “How do you feel about this memory?” asking the underlying issues and how I feel about myself in regard to the memory. Then, she will ask me to place this feeling on a scale. Finally, she will ask, “What do you wish you could think about yourself?”

There are several ways to get at this state the EMDR practitioner wants their patient to be in, such as LED lights moving in a line or tapping on the knees of a patient. I use two buzzers. My therapist will hand me two buzzers connected to a device by wires, which regulates a tempo. The left buzzer will give a slight buzz and then the right. The speed of these alternating buzzes can be adjusted and often are depending on the stage of the memory the patient is at. 

I will then close my eyes and put myself back into the shoes of whatever traumatic memory I am processing with the therapist. At first, the buzzes are set to a low tempo. I will then begin to describe the event aloud to my therapist, and when I come to a natural, mini stopping point in the story, she will say, “think about that.” This is repeated until the memory is thoroughly explored. There is a stop and go, “think about that,” and “what are you thinking of?” It is a pushing and pulling of information from the patient.

The next stage of the memory is processing. The ultimate goal of this therapy is a kind of desensitization. At the end, my therapist will ask about “what I wish I thought about myself” and how true, on a scale of one to seven, is this thought of mine? Sometimes the number will already be at a seven, and other times it will take longer to fully process the memory.

This therapy is a treatment to help with the root of my BPD. I am only three months in. However, I can already feel some of the symptoms of my BPD begin to lessen. I am starting to split less.