This entire experience took place yesterday (September 18th), but I’m documenting it today (September 19th). I truely believe that reading this post is the closest thing anyone can come to witnessing EMDR without being a practicing therapist or volunteer patient. For those who have asked me about it, here ya go....

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I am five years old. And I’m 35-years old.
I am both at the same time.
I am making art and healing my brain.
Because I have superpowers, just like he said.

Here are the colors. They’re very important. They distinguish between Pleasantville and real life.

I am real now. I’m becoming a real boy, like Pinocchio. But a girl instead.

I have to learn how to not be afraid as a girl.
Here are the colors. They’re on my feathers. My feathers are made of the colors.
Here they are, in order:

Bright Clear Water Blue = Quenched Relief. Refreshed. Clean. Finally.
Yellow = Energy. Movement. Momentum. Can be panick, terror, or not at all. Can be neutral. Energy dancing around in the body. It has to get out or it hurts.
Pinkish Magenta = Passion. Different than Power but similar. “Haha, I’m Here!”
Nice Green, Gentle Green = Empathy. Kindness.
Orange = Boldness. Courage.
Red = Anger. Protection. Actions of Justice.
Steel Blue = Nourishment. Depth. Satiation.
Purple = Royalty. Dignity. Value. Worth. Not entitlement.
Brown = Grounded Stability. Safety. Something to count on. The earth. The material. Reality.
Black = Grief. Pure grief. Grief in it’s purest form.

My tail feathers are the color of sky. Sky Blue. Full of possibility. Endlessness. Imagination, but not. Potential and future and “what could this be?” That’s what Sky Blue feels like. It feel like anything I need it to be to fly. To escape. To succeed.

My Sky Blue tail feathers provide me with Balance and Purpose and a sense of Direction. My tail feathers are very important. The give me autonomy from the flock. They give me freedom to flee from predators. A bird becomes prey without her tail feathers. It’s true. Look it up. I know. I save wounded birds in my back yard. That’s not a figure of speech. The chickens will kill them if I don’t. It’s not a metaphor, but it’s also a metaphor. It is the most true thing I’ve ever written.

You should read that again.

The child speaks to me, because I am Her and She is me. We are together, making art. She writes on paper, an extra sheet of paper. Scrap paper. We’ll call it her notebook.

Notebook: “Being quenched and relieved is different from the satiation of nourishment. They are both blue, but they’re very different. One eradicates existing pain. The other adds comfort and nurturing to a neutral body. I know I need both very badly but the people who kept me in the cage were not good at protecting or caring for me. They think birds can take care of themselves. They think birds can cry themselves to sleep. But they can’t. They can’t take care of themselves when their kept in a cage.”

It’s the crib. But it’s a cage. She couldn’t get out. Tortured. Poor bird. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t cry. The needles made her silent. The choking kept her still.

Notebook: “I am allowed to have colors I never had before. I’m a late bloomer. Only thirty-five. Cute. That was a cute joke. ”

I am painting myself black with pastels. I’m a black bird. A Grackle. I am made of sadness. My whole body is made of it. I grew up in a black body.

Notebook: “The grief is not badness. Badness is different. It’s not even of the bird or of me. The badness is far away and does not touch me. But the grief. The grief is not badness or darkness. It is just the expression and expelling of what was pain.”

It shoots out everywhere. Purple lines pour out of my eyes. I don’t know why they’re purple since they’re grief. You’d think they’d be black. Streams and streams of purple lines. Black outlines every feather. It is the shadow of every other color. I’m crying and coloring at the same time. Just like I used to as a child. I try to take notes.

Notebook: “Grief is the propeller of my existence. I am propelled by grief. Colors are defined against the grief. Black gives color definition. Contrast. Light vs. Dark. Grief embodies all of me. It shoot our my feathers. It’s released into the Universe as the positive emotions. A rainbow of feelings. I have never had access to them before.

“My heart still has grief in it, but it is open. We have claw feet. Talens. And a big beak. For weaponry. But we only use them to care for ourselves; tools. They are tools. Some people use tools like weapons...but not me. Not unless it’s an emergency...because I am a bird of kindness. Bird of Paradise. When it’s integrated instead of dissassociative, Grief helps Us be in reality. Fantasy happens when grief’s not allowed. Depression is my reality.”

I can cry and color at the same time.
I can cry and be smart at the same time.
I’m 35-years old. Bawling.
Just watch. Just watch us make it out.
I’m the smartest girl in the world…

Notebook:
“I am a Grackle. Maybe I am a sad bird, so what.
Brokenness is beautiful because Light can shine behind it.
Black Bird.
Dark Bird.
Beautiful Bird.
Healing Bird.
I help mirror peoples’ grief to themselves when they have too much fear to face their grief alone.
That is my gift.
As a Black Bird.”

I use the Black oil pastel to cover my whole bird body in blackness. I am black with a beak. I am grief with weapons I never use. I overlap layers and layers of black oil until the pastels are peeling off the page...and then I add more. I can’t stop making me black. Nothing has ever felt so right.

Notebook: “And. And, and. And, hhmmmm. (Pause). My bird body is like a prism. It reflects emotional colors that have never been seen. (Pause). Because. (Stuttering, thinking). Because I am a miracle. And miracles are speshal. S-P-E-C-I-A-L. Special. (Stuttering. Thinking. Gripping my earlobe. Figuring things out. Tapping my head with her index finger). And I can be special, even when I am by myself. I can be special even when I am lonely. I am still special even though there was pain. (Crying is happening to me. My eyes make wetness that falls down my cheeks). And I am allowed to be free. To be special even when... Even though the bird... No. (Thinking hard. Intense focus. School is hard. Reading is hard. Writing is hard in Kindergarden.)

Notebook: “I can be freely special even though the people outside the birdcage tell me to be quiet. I am allowed to sing now. Because singing before was dangerous and invited pain to find me. But NOW - today - I am allowed to sing? (Pause. Curiosity. Confusion. Observation.). Will the pain come get me if I sing? I don’t know. But I want to sing.”

Her speech is so disfluent. It’s as if she’s learning to talk for the first time. She sounds out every word with my mouth. She practices vowels and consonants by reshaping my lips. She tries hard in school. In this art-therapy class. In EMDR.

Notebook: “I want to be a loud bird. I want to caw like a hawk echoes in the desert canyons. I want to be heard. Because no one could hear me before - trapped in that cage.”

She hides. The Child-Me hides. The Adult-Me tries to find her. Her energy vanishes. In the closet, maybe? I’m not sure.

Notebook: “Rachel. Are you there? Hey Rachel, we are not in the cage anymore.”

Something comes back. I can’t tell if it’s Her. It doesn’t feel like either of us.

“You are afraid to draw singing.”

I am afraid to draw singing. To draw it on the paper. Holy Shit - I’m terrified! That’s why I distract myself with electronics and Cheerios here at the Bridges! I eat so many fuckin’ Cheerios it’s ridiculous. Like a hotdog contest with cereal. I’m a cereal killer, for real.

“You are afraid bad things will happen to you and you will get punished.”

Whoa, that’s right! Even as an adult! Dude, girl, how’d you know that?

“But you can sing if you’d like even though you don’t believe me. Maybe we will be brave and draw it anyway. And then we can try it all over again tomorrow, too.”

I have to consent. (I never consent). I have to agree. (I never give in). And I know what It’s saying. The Wisdom. It’s saying we’ll blog about it tomorrow, which is today, so we can relive the entire thing. So we can practice the Truth. So we can make neurological connections that solidify this Truth in our brains.

“Ok, so let’s do that.”

I’m afraid. I ask Her. I ask Myself, ‘Hey Rachel, if we weren’t afraid, what would we write? What would we draw? Let’s color like we aren’t afraid. Let’s just color what we would want.’ She agrees. She takes the bait! It takes courage, I’m proud of her bravery. Desire is Orange.

Orange: “WANT.”

Want. In big, orange letters. ‘Yes!’ I think to myself. One for the win.

I draw purple lines everywhere. They aren’t tears anymore. They are speech bubbles. They are the heights to which my voice will reach. There is no ceiling. There is no end. There’s an end to the paper, but not to my voice.

I write what I want. What I want writes itself through me...like a channel...I’m just a body receiving the Truth. This Truth sets me free...but it’s slow.

Sky Blue: “We move in the direction of LOUD and SAFE and free. And singing however I want. We want. Forever.”

His rules have to be written. They have to come out with the pencil before we can erase them. His rules are like laws. Enforced. The penalty for breaking the law is death. Eternal hell. That’s what he said. He has very few rules:

Pencil: “It was his job to create fear and inject it into birds. He likes keeping birds pretty and in glass where they can’t move. He says ‘SSSSSHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!’ all the time and it is so mean and loud.”

I take out my red, angry protective voice. She does. We write:

Red: “I can do what I want!”

But the energy tells him it’s a facade.

Yellow: “Facade.”

It’s written in yellow. The “F” word. Facade. It’s fierce and afraid and feels like ‘ants in my pants doing the boogie dance.’

the yellow is energetic fear and expression in the same wave. It’s survival, that’s all. That’s what it is. He calls it sass. But it’s a plea, really. It’s sassy words, but a pleading body. Begging the monster. Begging the Tickle Monster to leave her alone. The Big Black Cloud of Nightterrors. The Boggie Man. The yellow is a bravely disguised. It’s spiked and jumpy. Always seeking escape. Yes, that’s what yellow it. Anxious escape.

The color brown picks up the oil pastel and tells me the truth. It’s truth doing the work for us.

Brown: “I want to be real. I want to never have to ‘sshhh’ again.”
Red: “I don’t HAVE to ‘SSSHHHH’! That’s mean.”
Red & Orange together: “I DON’T WANT TO SHHHHHH!!!!”

More purple lines. Violet is everywhere. I don’t know why, but I don’t need to know. The Truth will tell me. I already know I’m special. I already know I’m a special miracle. She already knows that. She’s just stuck in an argumentative circle, that’s all.

Purple: “My worth and dignity and value are safe.”

Notebook: “My worth and dignity and value are safe. WHOA! My worth and dignity and value are safe. Timelessly safe. No matter where I fly!!!! I can fly anywhere and SAY ANYTHING AND STILL BE SAFE!”

I keep needing more pages. More paper to write on. I keep needing blank sheets of “notebook” paper to work out the Truth. I wait patiently for my teacher to get me some. What a nice, gentle, art therapy teacher. I never liked my art teachers in school...but I like her.

Notebook: “I can fly anywhere!!!! EVERYwhere! And I can SAY ANYTHING ANYWHERE and I AM SAFE(!) Because my worth and my dignity and my innate value are my safety. And they are in my wings. You can spread them everywhere/anywhere and create safety for yourself.”

Notebook: “Very nice. I am proud of you. Very nice. Let’s integrate this, deal? Deal! Cool.”

I take the purple pastel and I color the pages. I cover the pages in purple! I draw like a violently passionate autistic child - spreading the violet as if it’s a contagion. My arms are ridid. I’m determined. I ask for more paper just to color them purple. To color the whole, entire earth purple. I even draw on my forehead. I put a purple line of compressed oil on my face. Right above my eyebrows. Horizontal line. A joke, but not.

I’m beaming.

I’m beaming and tired.

I need a nap.

I think I’ll give Her one.

She’s earned it.