From Counselling to EMDR – Therapy after Suicide Loss
In the near seven-and-a-half years since my brother’s death by suicide, I’ve had counselling on 4 different occasions, with 4 different counsellors. The first bout of sessions began about 14 months after his death (after I sought it – it has never been offered to me). All of the session-groupings have opened with ‘we’ll have 6 sessions and see how it goes’ - ultimately I’ve ended up attending at least double that amount on two of the runs. Accessing these counselling sessions has involved being patient on waiting lists ranging from around 20 weeks (NHS) to 6 weeks (university student support) to 2 weeks (charity-provided). In my quest for relief, I’ve also had a series of aromatherapy massages and attended a Cruse/Samaritans ‘peer support group’, both of these also assigned a 6 week timeline (6 is apparently the magic number). I’ve been prescribed anti-depressant medication on two different occasions, (without wanting to use tablets, might I say, as I think having a non-judgemental space to talk through ‘stuff’ is really more productive after bereavement than any pill program). These are just the more ‘formal’ elements of my mental health aftermath of suicide-loss. Less formally, I’ve read a bucket load of memoirs and suicide research publications, (to learn about this type of loss as well as about myself), attended charity-run suicide bereaved support/commemoration events, and have simply found others (friends) through the experience, people who ‘get it’ and who I’ve been able to talk to without fear.
This is the first time I’ve written all these experiences on paper - seeing them here, I would have to say and conclude that, at least in reference to my own case, experiencing suicide loss really, REALLY has great potential to screw with your head as you try to resurface and continue life with a sense of normality.
Looking back on my experiences, there is a theme that I can identify as I recall the reasons why I sought help. I accessed ‘talking therapies’ for pre-natal anxiety, excessive study stress, low self-esteem etc....; at least these were the reasons I gave for needing the help. But as I recall the appointments and the conversations I had in calm rooms on comfy chairs, the consistent topic of talk would always fall to my brother’s death and my response to it. I never asked for suicide bereavement counselling specifically but about suicide bereavement is what I always ended up needing to express.
Maybe this is why I have come to think of and call the loss of my brother as my main ‘underlying condition’, a chronic state that impacts on all other parts of my life, not constantly but in an ebb and flow, peak and trough manner. Allow a little explanation - take for instance my other underlying condition, asthma - it’s chronic; I have a daily inhaler to keep it controlled, but it’s still there and is always worse in the winter ice patches and the summer hay fever season, when I laugh, when I run too fast too quickly, when I use too much toothpaste of a night-time teeth-brush… Being a suicide survivor to me is essentially pretty similar - the grief for me is a condition with longevity. Its triggers (particularly unexpected ones) make it worse; certain situations prod a dormant sense of it into a fully-live being again, to the extent that it invades my mind unless it is dealt with face-on; taking too much on and not self-caring enough, resulting in immense tiredness/stress, also scratch the wound and ultimately lead to ear-steam emissions of a cartoon variety... It can be controlled/reigned in (sorta…) but every so often there is a massive flare up that needs so much energy that ‘hiding it’ can’t be achieved and heavier treatment/concentration is a must, regardless of how many years have passed since the day of the loss itself.
Thus is my current moment. Having recently experienced a few rather *ahem* large life disappointments/obstacles/ stressors, I find that the black hole of suicide bereavement in my gut has grown again and as a consequence it has become apparent that my resilience to deal with standard life problems has been somewhat weakened. I always know when things are not going so well generally because the bad, bloody-amputation dreams that were experienced in the immediate aftermath of Martin’s death return, as does the image of my brother in his death position as the first thought of every single morning. These things on repeat do not for good days make. I’ve reached a ‘hold up, time out’ point.
I’m in a very fortunate position that this time my parents have offered to help me go private, to avoid worsenings as waiting lists lengthen. (And let me say now that the ‘going private’ thing is not something I want to do. I want the NHS to have funding and staff and all it needs to ensure easier therapeutic access for those of us who need, (indeed for there to be ANY recognisable support for the suicide bereaved), but that isn’t the reality and the help is still needed so I must thus conduct myself anyway).
My mother located a counsellor for me to try, forwarding a link of a woman with masses of qualifications and pronouncements of the successes she could achieve FOR her clients. And here my heart sank a little, not because I had to admit I needed therapy, but because I simply thought ‘what can this realistically do?’ Only I can do; a counsellor can’t for me. Therapy, if I’m honest, has never really helped me deal outside the counselling room. It’s provided a decent and needed space to vent but it has not necessarily given me something to work with outside, tools to take away and use. Ultimately, I have an unfixable problem in that my brother remains dead by his own hand - that cannot be resolved for me by a counsellor so any therapy I have needs to be aware of that. (Counselling that takes as a starting point that you have ‘faulty thinking’ (as one counsellor labelled my thoughts in session 1) that can be challenged and rectified can only work, in my view, to a certain point when it comes to suicide bereavement). This suggests to me ‘standard’ counselling isn’t always necessarily the most functional or appropriate throughout the whole suicide loss experience – it may be at certain times but at other points in the ‘coming to terms’ process alternative options/methods are a must, recognising that a suicide-bereaved person’s needs change over time. So why is it often thought that the suicide bereaved should automatically ‘just have counselling’? There have been times when counselling has ultimately made things worse for me rather than better because it was very obvious there wasn’t a full understanding/appreciation of what it exactly means to be bereaved by suicide.
But this time I’m not going for counselling. This time I shall be trying EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) Therapy. I first broached the idea of attending EMDR with my GP about a year ago. I’d read a number of examples of other suicide survivors who’d gone through it and found relief. But when I broached the subject with my GP, she wasn’t familiar with it and was ‘pretty sure’ it wasn’t available through the NHS. I spent about 10 minutes filling her in on what I’d learned of EMDR, resulting in the statement ‘that’s very interesting, I’ll mention it at the next Practice meeting’. Grand….
EMDR as a title does sound a tad serious maybe. But, briefly, here’s what it is:
Fingers crossed. I’ll let you know how it goes (if you’d like...)…
This is the first time I’ve written all these experiences on paper - seeing them here, I would have to say and conclude that, at least in reference to my own case, experiencing suicide loss really, REALLY has great potential to screw with your head as you try to resurface and continue life with a sense of normality.
Looking back on my experiences, there is a theme that I can identify as I recall the reasons why I sought help. I accessed ‘talking therapies’ for pre-natal anxiety, excessive study stress, low self-esteem etc....; at least these were the reasons I gave for needing the help. But as I recall the appointments and the conversations I had in calm rooms on comfy chairs, the consistent topic of talk would always fall to my brother’s death and my response to it. I never asked for suicide bereavement counselling specifically but about suicide bereavement is what I always ended up needing to express.
Maybe this is why I have come to think of and call the loss of my brother as my main ‘underlying condition’, a chronic state that impacts on all other parts of my life, not constantly but in an ebb and flow, peak and trough manner. Allow a little explanation - take for instance my other underlying condition, asthma - it’s chronic; I have a daily inhaler to keep it controlled, but it’s still there and is always worse in the winter ice patches and the summer hay fever season, when I laugh, when I run too fast too quickly, when I use too much toothpaste of a night-time teeth-brush… Being a suicide survivor to me is essentially pretty similar - the grief for me is a condition with longevity. Its triggers (particularly unexpected ones) make it worse; certain situations prod a dormant sense of it into a fully-live being again, to the extent that it invades my mind unless it is dealt with face-on; taking too much on and not self-caring enough, resulting in immense tiredness/stress, also scratch the wound and ultimately lead to ear-steam emissions of a cartoon variety... It can be controlled/reigned in (sorta…) but every so often there is a massive flare up that needs so much energy that ‘hiding it’ can’t be achieved and heavier treatment/concentration is a must, regardless of how many years have passed since the day of the loss itself.
Thus is my current moment. Having recently experienced a few rather *ahem* large life disappointments/obstacles/ stressors, I find that the black hole of suicide bereavement in my gut has grown again and as a consequence it has become apparent that my resilience to deal with standard life problems has been somewhat weakened. I always know when things are not going so well generally because the bad, bloody-amputation dreams that were experienced in the immediate aftermath of Martin’s death return, as does the image of my brother in his death position as the first thought of every single morning. These things on repeat do not for good days make. I’ve reached a ‘hold up, time out’ point.
I’m in a very fortunate position that this time my parents have offered to help me go private, to avoid worsenings as waiting lists lengthen. (And let me say now that the ‘going private’ thing is not something I want to do. I want the NHS to have funding and staff and all it needs to ensure easier therapeutic access for those of us who need, (indeed for there to be ANY recognisable support for the suicide bereaved), but that isn’t the reality and the help is still needed so I must thus conduct myself anyway).
My mother located a counsellor for me to try, forwarding a link of a woman with masses of qualifications and pronouncements of the successes she could achieve FOR her clients. And here my heart sank a little, not because I had to admit I needed therapy, but because I simply thought ‘what can this realistically do?’ Only I can do; a counsellor can’t for me. Therapy, if I’m honest, has never really helped me deal outside the counselling room. It’s provided a decent and needed space to vent but it has not necessarily given me something to work with outside, tools to take away and use. Ultimately, I have an unfixable problem in that my brother remains dead by his own hand - that cannot be resolved for me by a counsellor so any therapy I have needs to be aware of that. (Counselling that takes as a starting point that you have ‘faulty thinking’ (as one counsellor labelled my thoughts in session 1) that can be challenged and rectified can only work, in my view, to a certain point when it comes to suicide bereavement). This suggests to me ‘standard’ counselling isn’t always necessarily the most functional or appropriate throughout the whole suicide loss experience – it may be at certain times but at other points in the ‘coming to terms’ process alternative options/methods are a must, recognising that a suicide-bereaved person’s needs change over time. So why is it often thought that the suicide bereaved should automatically ‘just have counselling’? There have been times when counselling has ultimately made things worse for me rather than better because it was very obvious there wasn’t a full understanding/appreciation of what it exactly means to be bereaved by suicide.
But this time I’m not going for counselling. This time I shall be trying EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) Therapy. I first broached the idea of attending EMDR with my GP about a year ago. I’d read a number of examples of other suicide survivors who’d gone through it and found relief. But when I broached the subject with my GP, she wasn’t familiar with it and was ‘pretty sure’ it wasn’t available through the NHS. I spent about 10 minutes filling her in on what I’d learned of EMDR, resulting in the statement ‘that’s very interesting, I’ll mention it at the next Practice meeting’. Grand….
EMDR as a title does sound a tad serious maybe. But, briefly, here’s what it is:
- Developed by Francine Shapiro, “In essence it is a way of helping people to focus their attention on particular haunting memories, or the imagination of dreadful events, by following with their eyes, the movements of the therapists finger or other object that is oscillated from side to side while the client repeatedly describes the painful image that torments them. With each repetition the pain grows marginally less until a satisfactory level of tolerance it reached. People do not forget the dead but they regain control of their thoughts” (Murray Parkes, in Solomon and Rando, 2014; 118) Basically, it “combines exposure therapy with rapid eye movements associated with sleep. During REM sleep, the brain eliminates unnecessary information, in a process known as reverse-learning, which might also help to dampen intrusive thoughts.” And this is the idea that connects with EMDR.
- Research has shown effectiveness of EMDR in treating PTSD in particular, but there has also been work showing its potential to help grievers (especially those who have experienced traumatic loss) - EMDR allows firstly, ‘dealing with the death’, secondly ‘accepting the death’ and thirdly, ‘integration of the absence’ according to Lazrove (1997); Shapiro and Solomon (1997) described an ability of EMDR to “resolve issues related to responsibility, present safety and control”(in Solomon and Rando, 2014:119), and a last important aspect found the research conducted is that EMDR treatment can unblock memory access overtaken by the loss, and through the therapy “positive memories with associated affect emerge” (Solomon and Rando, 2014: 120).
Fingers crossed. I’ll let you know how it goes (if you’d like...)…
Comments
Post a Comment