By Ellen Littlejohns 

All it took was a car horn beeping to render me back on the floor. Amongst bringing a change of clothes to work most days so that I’d be unrecognisable from the morning walk in and dying my hair bright colours so it’d be easier to recognise me from ‘MISSING WOMAN’ posters if I ever became one, traversing my flat on all fours so that I couldn’t be spotted through a window was my newest habit. My list of unhealthy coping behaviours was growing; being unable to attend a meeting because I couldn’t mentally bring myself to get off the floor was the trigger to convince me that I needed professional advice.

I won’t explain my experiences in detail – sadly, in this climate saying that you’re one of the 97% is often enough explanation. Incidences of sexual assault and a traumatic experience abroad had led me down the path I was on, and I was losing my sense of self. The relentless fear of a reoccurrence consumed me, and the hypervigilance I clung onto for the most minute sense of safety was exhausting. 

While I know anyone could be a danger to me, I also know that doesn’t mean that every man will attempt to assault or abduct me. These days I’m filled with rage when I see articles suggesting it’s a woman’s job to reduce her vulnerability to SA, but the Ellen that I was in August 2020 firmly believed that every man had a vendetta against women and that it was her job to protect herself. 

I did know that my beliefs weren’t totally rational. Why was it that my friends were able to go about their lives without a midday outfit change? How were they able to comfortably go outside without spiralling into a panic attack when a stranger merely glanced at them? I knew I wasn’t processing my trauma healthily, so I got into contact with a scheme through work. 

I was told that I was likely suffering with complex PTSD – which was much more than their system was equipped to deal with – and was told to research EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).

I was willing to try anything to allow myself even a moment of respite, so I met an EMDR therapist. She explained the therapy to me as the idea of reprocessing your perception of time and emotion when experiencing a flashback. When encountering a trigger, something can happen called an amygdala hijack. The amygdala is the part of your brain that processes memory and emotional responses. When overwhelmed, it effectively goes into panic mode and it’s near impossible to process that, while triggered, you’re not in danger at that precise moment. EMDR seeks to help you stay centred in the present so that you can recall traumatic events and acknowledge the anxiety you felt at the time while also recognising that it’s in the past. 

EMDR encourages you to focus on the traumatic event(s) while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation. Typically, this would be done with eye movement, but social distancing obviously made this a challenge. Instead, we did tapping exercises; I’d follow the speed and pattern that my therapist tapped and mimic it on my own lap. 

I’ll be honest, basically forcing yourself into a panic attack SUCKS, but the knowledge that you’re in a room with a professional and that you’re not in any real danger helps. To start with, it was a huge struggle to maintain the constant tapping without getting fully swept into the flashback. Every session left me exhausted. 

But over time, I found myself getting better at acknowledging my anxiety, sitting with it, and bringing myself back to the present. My therapist’s key phrase that she asked me to recite whenever I felt myself drifting was: “I am safe NOW”. This didn’t seek to invalidate the feelings I was experiencing but instead reminded me that while there was a time that I was in danger, I wasn’t in that moment. This phrase still helps me today.

After only seven sessions, I took myself for a walk around a nearby park. It was daylight, and it wasn’t too busy, but it was still a massive accomplishment when I considered where I was just two months before.

I still see my therapist now, but we managed to complete EMDR treatment after only ten weeks. It did rewire my brain. I was no longer turning down social plans or trying to make myself look like less of a target (what does that even mean?!) before leaving the house. Most importantly, I could breathe, unencumbered by incapacitating anxiety. 

This isn’t a fix-all approach. You can’t just bash out ten weeks of EMDR and be ‘cured’. It’s a commitment to practising your recentring techniques, checking in, and acknowledging that you may be in danger again one day. EMDR doesn’t seek to eradicate your sense of fear altogether, as most of us will be in situations where we need to recognise risk and take action. 

When I look back at the Ellen who was glued to the floor, choked by trauma and tears, I’m proud of the work she put in to allow present Ellen to experience the life she does today. While I’m definitely still affected by my trauma, I’m grateful that the experience, my therapist, and EMDR gave me the courage simply to stand up again.