David J. Morris quote

As David J. Morris says, “Trauma destroys the fabric of time. In normal time you move from one moment to the next, sunrise to sunset, birth to death. After trauma, you may move in circles find yourself being sucked backwards into an eddy or bouncing like a rubber ball from now to then and back again.”

This is such a an eloquent way of talking about how trauma can dislocate folks from the usual flow of time in a linear, understandable fashion.

This is because of the disjointed and sensitized way that traumatic memories are stored in the brain, so that they are easily activated by reminders and associations, and then the experiences can come rushing back into the present.

To heal we need to help the brain put those pieces and experiences into a cohesive whole, with an adaptive understanding of what happened, a realistic idea of our role in the situation and that these events have ended and are in the past.

That is no small feet and why I think EMDR therapy is such a valuable tool. For me, it allows me to help people let go of the pain of their past, live more fully in the present and develop hope for the future.