What EMDR changed for me, and why I wish I’d started sooner

In 2026 I started EMDR therapy. I was 48 and had been in therapy for years. The first time, I cried. By early July 2026, a memory that had hurt for most of my adult life stopped hitting me the same way.

I remember wondering, is this real? Is this voodoo? Because it worked.

TL;DR: EMDR changed how I felt when I remembered finding my mother’s death certificates at 18. The painful memory stayed, but it stopped hitting me the same way. I’m still working on my reactions, and I wish I had started sooner.

The box in my dad’s office

My mother, Joyce, died by suicide when I was 22 months old. Around age 10, I was told she’d died of an illness. At 18, I found a box in my dad’s office with more than 100 copies of her death certificate. That’s how I found out how she died, with no context and nobody explaining it to me.

That discovery has been the focus of my EMDR work. We went from the moment I found the certificates to what I did with the pain as an adult, including the speeches and the anger.

By early July 2026, I felt a sense of relief. The week before, that memory had still been punching me. I could remember how I felt without feeling it. I felt bad for the 18-year-old who had opened that box with no context. But I didn’t feel empty or alone.

By August 2026, it felt more like something that had happened. The memory was still there. I could talk about it without being hit by everything at once.

I held on to it

For years, I used that pain in my advocacy. I wanted my speeches to be powerful and real. Looking back, I think I held on to the hurt partly on purpose.

I used to tell other survivors to own their story instead of letting their story own them. Sounds great. It’s damn near impossible to do. I hadn’t appreciated how much this thing owned me while I was telling other people how to live with theirs.

Too much of the work had been about controlling my anger without getting to why I was angry. I kept dealing with the reaction. The thing underneath it stayed there.

I could see how cruel I’d been to myself. Her birthday, Christmas, special days: I would focus on what I didn’t have while the good things in my life went past me. No amount of punishment was going to undo what happened to her.

I didn’t ask for any of this. I can say that now and give myself a little room to enjoy being here.

The work is still going

I see my regular therapist every week, and I have a business coach. With that support and EMDR, I’ve caught reactions I used to miss. In a couple of situations where I would normally have snapped, I stopped and listened. I could think about the outcome I wanted instead of fighting somebody’s ego.

That doesn’t mean the explosive reactions have disappeared. They haven’t. I know more about how to calm down, but I can still react the same way. I want to be honest about that, because relief from one memory hasn’t settled everything in my life.

I’m describing my own experience. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. The VA National Center for PTSD describes it as a therapy that focuses on processing a traumatic memory. A licensed therapist is the person to ask about whether EMDR fits yours.

I wish I’d started sooner. I think about the years I spent hurting and disengaging from people, and the relationships I might have saved. But I’m also grateful to the version of me who got through those years. It was a bumpy ride. Whatever I was doing got me here, and I’m glad I get to do this work now.

If you are struggling in the United States, call or text 988, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741741 through Crisis Text Line.

About Khary Penebaker

Khary Penebaker is Division President at MetalMaster-RoofMaster, the Upper Midwest division of Wolkow Braker Roofing Corp. He founded Penebaker Enterprises and grew it from $1.5M to $15M. A gun violence prevention advocate and former Everytown for Gun Safety Fellow, Khary brings two decades of leadership in commercial roofing, architectural sheet metal, and civic engagement.

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