12 years, nine doctors, and six medications into treating the symptoms of my PTSD, an acquaintance mentioned, in casual conversation, that a little known therapy had been highly successful in treating her PTSD which was related to past sexual trauma. Though my PTSD was the consequence of a year-long tour of duty in Iraq with the Army, she suggested that I look into it further as it had profoundly affected her quality of life and, consequently, that of those she was close to. When I finally made the decision to seek more information, I was not yet at a point of desperation where I was, “willing to try anything,” but looking back from this side of therapy, I realize that I should have been. I had embraced my PTSD with such firmness, that I persistently defended its effects on others. This was because, to me, it was my normal. My anxiety, depressed moods, anger, irritability, contempt, and resentment towards others had been the whole of who I was for 12 years. I couldn’t understand why after so many years, others could not accept it as I had.
My search for a therapist who specialized in EMDR brought me to Sue. Her compassion and genuinely empathetic approach was absolutely paramount to reaching the effects of the therapy. While the focus of my EMDR therapy directly targeted the specific events that were causing my PTSD, the benefits of its results were not independently mine. My relationships with my children and wife have improved exponentially. After only 5 or six sessions, my wife of ten years said to me, “there’s finally peace in our home.”
