I had an absolutely amazing EMDR session in therapy today, and my therapist has declared that I have successfully nullified my first traumatic memory.

When I was four years old, one of the older girls that I had always played with suddenly kept avoiding me and refused to play. I was scared that I had done something that made her hate me, and I asked my mom what was wrong. She told me that the girl had reached that age “where girls don’t want to play with boys any more.” This massively effected me, because I didn’t see anything about myself that was different from her. To my memory, this was the first time I had ever been given any indication that my being a “boy” had meant anything, and it landed into my psyche like a brick. I was wrong, I was different, I was other.

I’m now quite certain that this event single handedly prevented me from recognizing myself as a girl at that age. I had this intensely painful moment enforcing to me that I had to be a boy, and people would only ever see me as a boy, no matter how I felt about it.

In our session today my therapist reinforced via EMDR that there was nothing different about me. I wasn’t wrong, I wasn’t separate, I was a girl just like her, and the way I was treated was never my fault. When it finally firmed up in my brain, I suddenly felt this intense wave of relief pour over me, and my self confidence in myself as a woman just exploded. I had a mental image appear of a daisy bud blossoming in the sunlight, and I knew that it was myself.

I have been carrying this burden for my entire life, it has haunted me over and over again. And now… I am free. I was so overcome with euphoria on the drive home that I had to force it down lest I started crying on the freeway.

Eye makeup today was done using the Too Faced Peaches and Cream palette. I debated posting today’s OOTD, since I just wore the same dress in an OOTD post last week, but the vote in my stories was unanimous.