Soni's Spark Shack

I am enough, I am worthy

I walked into my first EMDR session with almost no hope. I honestly didn’t think it would work for me. I’ve spent most of my life assuming nothing good could come out of anything I try. Healing always felt like something that belonged to other people—not me.

And with the way my memories float in third person, like I’m watching a movie of someone else’s life, I had even wondered if something was deeply wrong with me. Multiple personalities? Dissociation? I didn’t know. I just knew my past didn’t sit inside me like it does for everyone else.

My first memory of abuse was when I was four years old. Father’s Day.
My therapist asked me to stay with that memory and notice how it makes me feel now, as an adult, looking back.

Worthless.
That was the word that rose up immediately.
On a scale of 1–7, I rated it a 7.
And how much that memory still affects me today? I said 8–9 out of 10.
It still had hooks in me.

She asked me to hold the thought in my mind and watch the little black dot move across the screen. It lasted maybe thirty seconds, but it felt like a quiet storm inside my chest.

When the dot stopped, she asked what changed.

And unexpectedly… I didn’t see myself first.
I saw him—my dad—as a man who had no idea how to be a father.
A man who didn’t know who he was.
A man shaped by his own brutal childhood, raised on abuse and anger, and passing down only what he had been taught. I felt sad for him. The focus shifted off of me and onto him in a way I’d never experienced before.

We repeated the process. The dot moved. Then stopped.

This time, I felt something else—I wanted to help him… and I felt sad that I never could.
But as the dot moved again, something clicked:
His healing was never mine to carry.
If he had wanted to change, he would have sought it out, just like I’m doing now. I’m here because I want to heal. I made the decision to get better. That was never his choice to make for me, and it was never my job to make for him.

Another round of watching the dot.

This time, anger rose up.
Anger toward the god I was taught to pray to.
As a child, I had been told I needed forgiveness because I hid a Father’s Day gift. And yet that same god didn’t protect me when I needed protection the most. If he is love and kindness, why didn’t he step in?

The dot moved again.
Stop.
And I suddenly questioned why this bothered me so deeply when I don’t even believe this god exists. I was hurting over something I no longer believe in—and realizing that felt almost ridiculous.

Another round.

This time I felt anger toward society.
Toward how many children slip through the cracks.
Toward how few mental health resources exist for people who desperately need them. I felt powerless.

Then the dot moved one more time.

And something shifted again.
I realized I’m not powerless—not entirely. I can’t fix the world, and I can’t save anyone else. But I can tell my story. I can write. I can shine a light on the places people like me have had to walk through in the dark. That’s how I help. That’s how I contribute.

When the session ended, my therapist asked me to rate those same two questions again.
Worthlessness, from 1–7?
I said 1. Neutral.
The impact from 1–10?
I said 1.
I wasn’t expecting that.

I didn’t leave feeling worthless.
I didn’t leave feeling broken.
I left feeling… determined.

Determined to keep writing.
Determined to help others.
Determined to stand in my own worth, finally.

Today, something inside me shifted in a way I can’t take back—and I don’t want to.
I feel the spark of purpose, the kind that grows, the kind that steadies you, the kind that whispers, “You’re enough.”

And I am.

Until next session…