Laurel Roberts-Meese: EMDR and Trauma Recovery After Abuse

Someone who has been out of the relationship for six years calls, still crying, still ruled by it, and asks what is wrong with them. Therapist Laurel Roberts-Meese has a short answer: nothing. Sometimes a brain needs an intervention the same way a broken bone needs a cast.

Laurel Roberts-Meese is a licensed therapist based in California and licensed to see clients in California, Florida, Michigan and Washington. She leads a small hand-picked team, and every therapist on it either arrives with a deep background in treating trauma or trains in it there. Her own longest history is with people who have experienced sexual trauma. In this conversation she brings that lens to what happens to people coming out of coercive relationships and years of legal abuse.

She starts with how the definition of trauma has widened over the last century, from combat to almost anyone, because what the brain reacts to is perceived threat rather than measurable danger. From there: the amygdala and short-horizon survival thinking, why a nervous system can stay switched on long after you are safe, and why people who grew up in chaos sometimes build whole careers around it. Laurel then explains EMDR in plain terms, including where it came from, what the bilateral stimulation is doing to how a memory is stored, and why the successful outcome is emotional distance rather than forgetting.

The back half is practical. What resourcing is, why she considers a therapist who skips it a red flag, and the fact that some clients need six months to a year of it before processing anything. When there is a genuine safety reason to wait. A short calm-place exercise you can try as you listen. And her four layers of health: rule out the medical explanations first, then sleep, food, substances and movement, then deep relationships including how to make friends as an adult without unloading on people, and finally your own values and what you want them to decide for you.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why the brain responds to perceived threat, and how years of legal abuse can produce PTSD
• What survival mode does to your thinking, and why the nervous system stays switched on after you are safe
• What EMDR is, where it came from, and what the side-to-side stimulation does to a memory
• Why relational trauma takes longer to treat than a single incident
• Why PTSD can surface years after you get out, and why that is not a setback
• What resourcing is, and why a therapist who skips it is worth questioning
• A calm-place exercise you can use the next time you get triggered
• The four layers Laurel works in: medical, behavioral, relationships, and personal values

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What counts as trauma, and why the definition keeps widening
4:00 The amygdala, survival mode, and a nervous system that won't stand down
7:00 The Friday night bomb, and why the calm stretches feel worse
9:30 "It's been six years and I'm still like this"
11:00 What EMDR is, and what it does to a memory
15:00 Bilateral movement, exercise, and what actually helps
19:30 Acute stress vs. PTSD, and why it can surface years later
22:30 "Now isn't the right time for EMDR": when that's true, when it's a red flag
26:30 A resourcing exercise to try right now
28:30 The four layers of health, and where to find Laurel

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Laurel Roberts-Meese and her team at Laurel Therapy Collective: https://laureltherapy.net/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.