“Mangia! Mangia!” Carlotta held up her right hand just the way her Grandma Chizzy would—all fingers and thumb pulled together to a point as though holding a tender morsel, evidence of what is waiting for you while you waste valuable time away from Italian heaven—a fully set table, a mouthful of magnificent food. Eat! Eat! Friends await you. This was the best job Carlotta ever had. She got to prepare and serve food to people every day. The groups of people she served—veterans, people without shelter, came to know her by name. A couple of folks would always arrive early to help her prepare. Carlotta loved this part. They would sit, peeling potatoes or carrots, and talk about the best breadcrumbs for the meatballs, just the way she had with her Grandma and her aunts. She liked how they talked over each other, the clanking of the silverware and glasses, the feeling they were mixing their ironies and simple joys together into this community meal.
Only Carlotta was completely faking it. She was pantomiming herself with her hand in the air and her forced insistence that people join and eat. Carlotta’s joy for cooking was gone. She sat in her Carson Center’s Trauma Therapist Anna’s office hoping that Anna could help her get her boisterous old ways back.
“I was sitting across from Adam,” Carlotta explained. “And I saw that he was struggling with the way the knife he was using wasn’t getting the peels off the potato very well. The strips were coming off so short, so I asked him, ‘Wouldn’t it work better if you use a potato peeler?’ I had one right there to hand to him. Instead of taking the potato peeler, Adam starting cutting himself all up with the knife! I know it wasn’t my fault, but still…I can’t stand hearing the silverware anymore. And I just don’t like any of it….I can see the whole thing at the strangest times… I can see me asking him if it would work better with a peeler, and then…if I only hadn’t asked him.”
Anna asked Carlotta if she’d like to try Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) which is a therapy approach that for many people can reduce the lingering effects of being so shocked and overwhelmed by painful events. Anna described it and Carlotta hesitated. Was this moving-your-eyes-as-they-follow-my-finger-thing really therapy? Could it work? Well, if it could bring her back to joy, then what the heck.
Anna and Carlotta sat across from one another. They weren’t seated exactly face-to-face, but seated so that when Anna raised her finger, it would be easily in front of Carlotta’s line of sight. There were questions: What was the most positive thought that Carlotta could hope to come out of the situation with? Anna asked her to give her emotions a scoring from 0-10 and then, most interestingly, to name where she felt these feelings in her body.
Carlotta realized these feelings were in her stomach, and a little bit in her throat, where everything got tight. But noticing this made the feelings and sensations change a little. Anna started moving her finger at eye level, and Carlotta followed its rhythm back and forth. “Just notice what’s happening,” suggested Anna. Don’t try to make anything happen.
Carlotta noticed she felt a little sick and nauseous. She had some thoughts. She told Anna about them. They talked and, in turns, were quiet while for about ten minutes, Carlotta followed Anna’s moving fingers and noticed what was happening in her body.
“Is there an image, anyone or anything that you could invite in that could be helpful?” Anna asked. Suddenly Carlotta gasped. “Do you want to tell me what it is?” asked Anna.
“Well, I don’t know why, but I was imagining a large female lion. She was kind of like Grandma Chizzy in a way, but a lion, and she was circling me, round and round, and then, suddenly she jumped in my middle!” “And what is that like?” asked Anna.
“It’s great! And you know what, of course it’s not my fault! I was just trying to be helpful! Oh, Adam.. I hope he gets some help. I feel differently. I just feel…relieved. I didn’t think it could happen like this.”
“Well, it doesn’t for everyone in such a clear way.”
“I’m so happy!” Carlotta jumped up, and though it isn’t the way it is usually done, she held her Carson therapist’s face and planted a kiss squarely on each cheek, announcing “THAT’s from Grandma Chizzy!”
by JAC Patrissi
