Disclaimer: I will be talking about my experience with suicide and details about Tim’s death. If you find these to be hard topics, I suggest you skip this one
“Intrusive thoughts are thoughts, images or urges that are unwanted but pop into your mind anyway. They find a way of disrupting your original thought patterns and can come out of nowhere or they can be cued by external stimuli (like in response to a situation or event) or internal stimuli (like anxiety, depression or other feelings). Intrusive thoughts are often violent, disturbing or unnerving in nature.” - Defined by the Cleveland Clinic
I never knew just how intrusive thoughts could be until I experienced Tim’s death. They come out of nowhere, when I’m watching TV, when I’m driving, while I’m working... BAM! I’m suddenly sitting there reliving the moment I found him, hearing the gun shots in the distance, I’m seeing myself running down the street to get to him, or I’m hearing my voice making the calls to friends and family that he was gone. I have no control over these thoughts. I don’t choose when they’ll happen and when they wont. The word intrusive itself means: causing disruption or annoyance through being unwelcome or uninvited. Unwelcome and uninvited for sure. Intrusive thoughts are also a trauma response. Nothing derails me more than having these thoughts pop up in my day to day life. They are heart wrenching, disturbing and so heavy. This is also a great example of one minute I’m fine and the next I’m not. Due to these intrusive thoughts, I can be not fine in a matter of seconds and not have a single say so in it. I’m finding this is something very hard for others around me to understand. However, it’s hard for me to explain because I don’t always understand it myself.
A big part of why I do EMDR Therapy is to help with these intrusive thoughts. EMDR is a therapy method that helps your brain process the trauma it has experienced. It’s rewiring your thoughts, feelings and actions around the event. The thoughts don’t go away, but they do become less painful. For the longest time I was reliving the moment I found Tim. What he looked like, disbelief, screaming for help, banging on neighbors doors, the cops ripping me off his body, sitting on the curb watching everything in slow motion, shit was brutal. I didn’t know how to stop those thoughts from entering my mind though. I did several sessions of EMDR to process THAT specific moment. Now when I think about finding him, my visions aren’t as strong, I’m filled with more of a haze than the heavy details, and it doesn’t riddle my body with anxiety as often. I attribute that to my EMDR. My therapist and I relived the trauma together (not fun at all but absolutely necessary), talking me through my feelings, asking me specific questions and rewiring my brain around that specific event.
Some days the intrusive thoughts are really bad. I’ll begin crying at the thought of them the moment they show up. It doesn’t matter where I am, they just pop in and break me down. Trauma is something else I never really experienced before, until now. I have since realized that there was a lot of trauma in the past few years of my life that I never worried or focused on processing. Now, they are coming up very unwanted and unsettled. While I can’t stop them from happening, I can try to do something about them. I’m getting ready to embark on my next EMDR treatment next week to process a new set of intrusive thoughts. To break down why I’m having the thoughts and how I can ease the pain of them.
So, if you see me smiling and then crying moments later, please know I probably don’t want to be crying – I just can’t help it. When you see my smiling face in pictures, please know that I may have just head a total breakdown but I’m trying to keep it together.
Losing Tim has hands down been the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do in this lifetime. There are so many moving parts to the whole event that just weigh on me every day. However, I’m also a firm believer in wanting to help yourself. I don’t want to be sad or distraught forever. He wouldn't want that for me either. That’s why I’m giving myself the love and support I need with EMDR, CBT, support groups and writing. These are all things that are helping me to heal. All things to help improve my mental state. Things that I wish I didn’t have to endure but since I am, I’m going to give it everything I have.
I’ve been told that the intrusive thoughts may never go away (that terrifies me) but that I can learn to live with them. Just like I’m learning to live in grief. It’s not an easy road but I’m here because I can do hard things.
Resources:
Thank you for sharing. I think it is so important we share what has helped us during the deepest darkest day of our lives. EMDR has helped me as well. I can at times have such vivid memories of finding Kristin, of sitting on that curb, of having all the commotion from the police and the neighbors I understand all of it. Thank you or opening your heart, and your soul. I am so thankful to call you a friend.