During our second session this morning Therapist D did the "butterfly method" of EMDR.

First, Younger Boy had to draw a picture in the top quadrant of a paper showing an upsetting memory.  Then he folded his arms and tapped his hands...left, right, left, right...on his upper arms while thinking about the picture.  This continued for three minutes.

Then another picture without being able to see the first.  More butterfly.

Another picture...more butterfly until it had been repeated four times.

Then he turned the paper over and wrote out three questions about the event and his answers to those questions.

So many interesting things...

1. He was completely fighting switching back and forth and dissociating.  He was blinking and twitching all over the place.
2. The four pictures were drawn out of order over the course of the event.
3. His three questions were all the same, but in different words.
4. His answers to the questions were VERBATIM words Therapist C had used in our earlier session.

Fascinating to watch, but it makes me so sad.  He truly has no ability to feel or process, because of trauma.  He has spent the majority of his life as the equivalent of sleep walking.

We have A LOT of work ahead of us.  God can heal all things.

I HATE that he had this much trauma.  It infuriates me.  Most of the time people are left to deal with the consequences of their own actions, but he is dealing with the consequences of so many other peoples actions.  None of this is his own fault.  My prayer for him is that one day he would truly believe that.