Two weeks ago, the president of the Rotary Club in Burlington, VT invited me to speak about traumatic brain injuries and read an excerpt of my essay, “Invisible Bruise.” Among the thirty members, I knew of two who had a connection to TBIs – one whose wife had suffered a concussion this past winter after she slipped on the ice, and another whose son died in a skiing accident four years ago. As I shared the statistics of TBIs, and my story, the room turned silent, penetrated only by intermittent gasps and soft utterances in response to a startling fact or personal passage I shared. Did these reactions stem from surprise, disbelief? Or did I say something that resonated with the group? When I asked if anyone had any questions, hands quickly shot up: “How are you doing now?” Someone asked. “What can we do to be more sensitive to others with traumatic brain injuries?” another asked. “What is a typical day like for you?” And, “Who do we turn to for more information about brain injuries?”
The president of the club then approached the dais. She grabbed my wrist, wrapped her trembling fingers around it. “Please,” she said, “stay here.” She paused, took a deep breath, her eyes trickling clear tears. “My daughter suffered a brain injury,” she said, her voice the sound of shells washing up to shore. She explained how her daughter had fallen off a horse, how she struggled for years, judged by others as being lazy. It wasn’t until her mother read a book about another woman’s own recovery from a TBI after falling off a horse that she realized her daughter had suffered from one too. She looked at me, the tears now streaming down her flushed cheek. The hairs on my arms stood up, as surprised as I was at this serendipitous moment, this moment of unexpected mutual understanding.
At the close of the session, people gathered around me, eager to share their personal stories. “My wife thought her concussion was improving, but she’s having trouble again,” one of the members said. “She’s experiencing exactly what you described, the difficulty multi-tasking and concentrating.” Another member told me about the brain surgery she had years ago. “I know what you’re talking about,” she said, then hugged me. The man whose son died from a skiing accident approached me, his eyes blood-shot. He shook my hand and held it for several seconds, the warmth rising from his lifelines seeping into mine. He said a quite thank you, then dropped his head and walked away. I rubbed my palms together, holding onto the warmth, this man’s indescribable loss floating just below the surface of rheumy-eyed gratitude.
I left the event grateful, grateful for newfound collective understanding and open-minded conversation about a misunderstood injury. I am grateful for not being along when leaving the event – TBIs are everywhere: in gasps and tender utterances, in hugs and trickling tears, in blood-shot eyes. And submerged silences.

Current Social Networking Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Brain Injury Radio.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, or EMDR, was first discovered in 1987 by Psychologist Francis Shapiro.  One day, she felt anxious by negative thoughts, so went for a walk in the woods. Sure, you might say, sounds like a great way to shed some stress – walk it off. But as she moved her eyes from right to left, taking in nature’s greens, yellows, and browns, she noticed that her level of anxiety decreased. She tried a similar eye movement process with her clients, and it worked. They, too, experienced a reduction in anxiety. That’s how EMDR was born. Initially used to treat individuals with PTSD and other anxiety disorders, it is now used to treat other conditions like depression, schizophrenia and eating disorders.

When you cut your finger, cells race to the site and clump together to stop the bleeding. Your body’s nutrients then heal the wound. If it continues to get irritated, it will become inflamed and may open up again. Once the source of irritation is removed, the wound can finally heal. PTSD symptoms are like festering wounds; the goal of EMDR is to remove what is blocking those wounds from healing.

Here’s how EMDR works: The client recalls a vivid image from the trauma experienced, such as a lying on the pavement after being hit by a car while thinking about a negative belief about the self, such as “I’m going to die.” The client notes the visceral sensations and emotions she is experiencing like a tight chest, shortness of breath and increased fear. She then thinks of a positive image like taking a warm bath, then a thought: “I’m safe.” Following this, the client conjures the negative thoughts and images while undergoing 15-20 seconds of bilateral stimulation: lateral eye movements, where the client follows the back and forth movement of the therapist’s fingers. Even though lateral eye movements are the most common form of stimulation, other stimuli may be just as effective, such as tapping or tones. The therapist who treated me used walkie-talkie like devices that vibrated beneath the backs of my thighs.

The same bilateral stimulation is then used while the client focuses on the positive images and thoughts. Over time, these will become embedded in the client’s memory, blocking the negative images and thoughts – the wounds. Eventually, PTSD symptoms will lessen when exposed to sounds, smells, or sights reminiscent of a trauma or threat.

EMDR is different from exposure therapy, which involves prolonged exposure to a stimulus that triggers thoughts, emotions, and sensations about the traumatic event. Some therapists believe that prolonged exposure is necessary to produce effective treatment outcomes. But others believe that this type of therapy will cause fearful memories to outweigh the joyful ones in people who have experienced extreme trauma, then encounter a particularly stressful situation in the future.

http://www.emdr.com

How do writers transition from one layer (in this essay I use thread, strand, or filament) of a narrative, then successfully return to the main, or grounding thread? In Kathryn Harrison’s memoir, The Kiss, an account of her incestuous affair with her father, there are at least four threads woven throughout the book. The main one being her father, followed by secondary threads: Harrison’s mother, her grandparents, and her struggle with Anorexia Nervosa.

Like forming a braid, Harrison first introduces the main strand – her father – by summarizing the interactions between the two of them during their travels together – then deftly weaves in a secondary strand. One way she accomplishes this is by employing reflection. In the last sentence of the first chapter she says, “These nowhere and notimes [sic] are the only home we have.” The operative word “home” introduces Harrison’s grandmother – the next thread – in chapter two. Harrison says, “My mother’s parents raise me. I live in their house until I’m seventeen” (5).

But she does not let the grounding thread – her father – slip. She goes on to explain that he was not welcomed into her grandparents’ home. The thread further remains intact through dialogue – another strategy in which Harrison weaves together the braid of figures and events in the book. ‘“Where is your dad?’ other children ask. ‘I don’t know,’ [Harrison] answer[s]” (5). This dialogue is the diving off point, which allows her to delve deeper into her past: she tells us that her parents divorced when she was an infant and that she and her mother stayed with her grandparents after her dad left.

She also employs scene as a strategy to weave in the mother thread: her grandmother screams at Harrison’s mother when a date picks her up. But her mother saves snapshots of Harrison’s father (5, 6). We now have the mother thread introduced, along with the father and grandmother – a French braid.

Through scene again, we begin to learn more about Harrison’s mother: she sleeps much of the time, and when Harrison makes noise in an attempt to wake her mother, she ignores her daughter. A theme – rejection – is beginning to unfold between the three filaments – Harrison’s father, her grandparents and mother (7, 8). And when Harrison reflects on her mother’s date, her father remains present on the page: “Though she dates other men … my mother remains romantically fixated … on my father” (9). This follows with a tighter connection to the father: he sends letters to Harrison’s mother, and, as she says, “sometimes, folded in with them, are little ones for me (11).”

These letters segue to other objects, which, in addition to dialogue and reflection, keep the father, mother and grandparent strands intact. For instance, we have Harrison’s mother’s yearbook, in which she reflects on photos of her mother: “Do I know my mother any better than the long-ago classmate … who foretold her future? ‘She will study … French (17).’” The encyclopedia set Harrison includes belongs to her grandparents, which were sold to them by her father, who was once an encyclopedia salesman. Harrison’s mother attempts to teach her daughter French by using flashcards (16, 17, 18).

By including the cards, Harrison reveals her mother’s desire for her daughter to be perfect. Harrison says about her mother, “Once she throws the flash cards down and slaps my face. My mother’s love depends on my capitulation” (19, 20). The mother-daughter relationship in this scene provides us with the first hints of Harrison’s struggle with Anorexia Nervosa, yet another thread:

I come down with an illness no one can define or cure … It goes on for weeks until the day I hear the pediatrician tell my grandmother that I’m so dehydrated I’ll have to be hospitalized … I return to school not just thinner but seemingly smaller … Very occasionally, I dream in French, and on those mornings I wake up ill: I vomit (20, 21).

Harrison then loops back to the grounding thread of her father through startling reflection: “Do my father’s accomplishments cost him as dearly as mine do me” (21)?

Harrison, Kathryn. The Kiss. New York: Random House, 1997. Print.