Ellen didn’t want to pick up the phone when her best friend called. She was embarrassed. All she wanted to talk about was Paul, so she decided to just let the phone ring and sit with her own thoughts rather than bore her dear friend again with her worries about Paul. Ellen had dated Paul twenty years ago; she’d broken up with him after he had cheated on her. Paul had been married and divorced since. Ellen had had her own child and had been in her own committed relationships. But there were times when she was seized by the terrible feeling that she had lived her life all wrong and that the wrong turn was breaking up with Paul all those years ago.
The thing is, she didn’t even miss anything in particular about Paul. Yet every time she saw a movie that showed former couples reigniting their relationship after finding one another on Facebook or by chance, she fell into a profound sadness. Ellen wanted her life’s movie to go like the ones she watched in the theatre, where it would be clear there was a plan waiting just for her all along. Ellen felt like this about many other things, too. She’d gone to law school, but wondered all these years later if that had been a big mistake. She moved back to her hometown when her Dad had fallen ill. She loved it there, but was that a wrong turn? She loved her college experience, but had she picked the right one?
Ellen had tried therapy, but nothing budged. Her Paul Sadness always returned, and with it, the core feeling of being essentially wrong. She heard that there are Carson therapists trained in a kind of therapy called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. It was supposed to be fast and effective.
Over the next three visits, Ellen watched her Carson therapist’s finger as it moved back and forth in front of her eyes. As Ellen watched, she let herself experience the thoughts and feelings she associated with her first memory of feeling essentially wrong. She was a very petite person, and the only girl in her family of athletic brothers. She just couldn’t get the soccer ball in the yard. Her three tall brothers popped and passed it with agility all around her and laughed as she ran to and fro, never once able to touch the ball. Ellen experienced these and other memories and sensations like a wave passing through her as she watched her therapist’s finger passing back and forth. It was with a profound sense of disbelief, that Ellen spontaneously began to feel that she was essentially right, capable enough and good enough to live her life.
“I can’t believe this works! I read about it, but I didn’t really believe it. I’m telling my friends…the thing is, I never even really liked Paul all that much!”
By JAC Patrissi
