Guiding Light

Chapter 6: I Will Be Your Guiding Light

Chapter 6: I Will Be Your Guiding Light

"You are letting your mind get the best of you," Dr. Carr says as Levi shakes his head in frustration.

Both the history-taking phase and the preparation phase of Levi's EMDR therapy had taken two weeks since his initial consultation. After that, they had started the processing phase for an additional two weeks, twice a week. Over that time, Levi had felt minimal results at best, perhaps noticing his sleep improving a bit but not much had happened with his daily flashbacks.

Activating his flashbacks on demand felt impossible, and whenever he tried it, he only felt himself float out of his body again and look down at himself and Dr. Carr's moving fingers. It's like his brain was blocking any attempt to purge the memory.

"You need to just go with it. Focus on the memory, follow my fingers. Don't expect anything, if you expect too much, it hinders the outcome," Dr. Carr continues.

Levi lifts his glasses to his forehead and rubs his eyes with his hand. They are only twenty minutes into the session, but he is already exhausted.

He puts his glasses back on and takes a breath.

"Again," Levi says.

"Are you sure you don't want to do a meditation first?" Dr. Carr asks.

"Again," Levi repeats.

Dr. Carr nods. He leans his body towards Levi and lifts his index finger and middle finger up, glues them together in the middle, the palm of his hand facing Levi. He starts to wave the two fingers in front of Levi from left to right in a fast motion.

Levi follows the fingers intensely with his gaze while concentrating on Devon's bleeding body in front of him. Levi had not at first quite understood what the goal of EMDR was, but he had gotten a handle of it now. When Dr. Carr moved his fingers in front of him, Levi was to follow the movement with his eyes while concentrating on what had happened in the OR. The movement of the eyes on the fingers was similar to that of REM sleep and served the same purpose: the brain was activated to process the memory at hand and help him move on from it.

Nice to meet you. Dr. Schmitt...

"He's bleeding!" Taryn says in panic,

"What? From where?" Levi asks as his stomach drops.

Blood is everywhere, it's everywhere. They can't stop it. He can't stop it.

Never knew I had a groupie before...

Levi's hands are bleeding, he doesn't know if it's his blood or Devon's blood.

Time of death: 1:19.

Levi gasps when Dr. Carr stops moving his fingers. Levi breathes heavily, his hands are shaking.

"Levi, it's OK, it's just a memory. You are here with me, in this room," he hears Dr. Carr say, but can't quite focus on him because of his blurry vision.

"But I-, I killed him–," Levi gasps, as if it had just happened.

"Levi, it's OK, hold the object in your hands, look at the object," Dr. Carr says calmly.

The object he was referring to was a World of Warcraft Paladin figure who was holding a Sunsword. Nico had given it to Levi for Christmas a couple of years ago and it was one of his favourite belongings. The point of the object was to bring Levi back into the current moment if the flashback was too intense and he lost himself in it. He was to always hold that object during the processing stage of his treatment.

Levi looks at the object, runs his fingers over it. Slowly he feels himself come back to the room.

"Now, tell me what you saw," Dr. Carr says, ready to write everything down on his notepad.