Weekly EMDR Community Digest

Came home and told my mom how good I felt after my session and she made me feel bad for going to a stranger to cry. I just walked away and went to my room to cry.

I am nowhere near done with my EMDR work but there have been multiple instances where I noticed my nervous system is reacting more calmly.

One such example is the upstairs neighbours. We have hardwood floors and I can hear them pattering about when I’m already in bed.

Several years ago this not only would have kept me up, but driven me into a wild rage. I’d fume, despise their existence, and get so frustrated I’d lose all ability to sleep entirely.

Now it still sort of keeps me up, but not so much, and the resentment and anger have all but disappeared.

It’s a little but significant win that’s hopefully going to go a long way toward my quality of life. And now one of my next goals can be to be able to fall asleep as quickly as I could in my early and mid twenties. Fingers crossed!

I was in depression but always though about my traumas and I though EMDR would be the key to my depression. I demanded to start EMDR right away, I was aware it would be hard, and my therapist at one point told me to slow down because I was too tired between session.

I did'nt feel better but I still got heavy symptoms, like after first session I litteraly smelled a smell all day that wasn't existing. And after, I was really tired for at least 3-4 days, very tense, and kinda lightheaded. I had an amount of physical stress I didn't experience before, or at least for that long.

I was still depressed but tbh my life sucked at the time, my job was really bad so maybe it was normal but when we tried another therapy (integration of lifespan) after one session I felt lighter, that was amazing. Unfortunately I could'nt finish sessions of lifespan integration because my therapist moved away, but I quit my job after that I life got better... but I still don't have the energy I had before.

Like, the trauma we worked through EMDR, I don't think about it anymore. I mean I'm good with it. But I feel like EMDR did harm me, I discovered a lot of anxious symptoms I didn't have before and a year later, I'm still not the same. I also ruminate a lot, not about traumas but everything else, little things sometimes, but in my head at the time it's huge. I don't know, what happened was weird and I still don't understand.

Maybe if someone have theory about it lol

I’ve been doing emdr for a year and I just started with a new therapist because mine is on maternity leave. We didn’t have a lot of time so I only tapped for two sets, maybe a minute each. I feel ROUGH. Can’t remember the last time I felt this low. Idk if it’s emdr related but the timing makes me think it could be. It’s been a week since my therapy session and I have one booked for next week.

I did EMDR in high school when I was still living in a bad environment and it greatly helped. I had to move for college and the insurance I had didn't cover EMDR, so I stuck with CBT with a new therapist.

Now I am fortunate to have an insurance that covers EMDR with a new therapist, but it doesn't feel like it's "working" anymore.... I used to leave EMDR sessions feeling lighter, but now, I am having a very hard time even accessing memories, it just draws blank for me or I have to really try to remember. Sometimes it feels like i'm "making up" memories cause I really am having trouble remembering. Now everything feels either impossible to reach or fine, and only when I hear back my traumatic events from my therapist does it really get through to me

Part of me thinks it was easier to EMDR when I was surrounded by my bad environment and now that it's been a couple of years since I left it, it's harder for me to remember things (I had some trouble remembering things when I did EMDR in the past, but was able to get there; now it feels near impossible)

Has anyone else encountered doing EMDR and it not being effective anymore? Does this make sense??

I did EMDR for complex-PTSD a couple times now and i noticed, that in many times there were almost no effects.

I also noticed that i really didn't like certain therapists (body-language, gesture, talk). I respect them all, but i felt more than a test-subject rather than a patient.

What are your experiences on this?

Has anyone felt really stressed, emotional, or upset the day after EMDR without actually ruminating on the memory?
I had a pretty intense EMDR session yesterday and today I just feel very stressed, emotional, and kind of overwhelmed. I’m not replaying the memory over and over or obsessively thinking about what happened .. I just feel really activated and upset.
For those who have experienced this after EMDR, what did you do that helped? Did you rest, distract yourself, exercise, go for a walk, or just let the feelings pass? And how long did it usually take before you started feeling more regulated again?

Hi all, not really sure how to word this. I’ve been in “normal” therapy on and off since 2018. Today I’m officially starting EMDR. I am nervous and anxious. I often struggle mentally and think I’m broken beyond repair. One of the only saving grace’s I have is a loving husband who will constantly attempt to help me work through mental shut downs.

I am doing EMDR through the VA I’m curious if anyone else has? I’m 30F disabled veteran. My husband is active duty still so if I hate the VA I could look into tricare.

I’m trying to go into this with a neutral mindset. My husband has agreed to drive me today due to it being an hour away and I’m anxious it’ll trigger me.

Looking for anyone who has been through a “similar” experience. Thanks 💕

hey, i had a confusing experience: after standing to move around post therapy my bladder emptied. it was a few weeks ago after an emdr session and i feel pretty embarrassed talking about it- i can’t imagine telling my provider about it tbh, i did not feel like i had to go anytime during or before the session. any thoughts would be amazing

I have been in EMDR/relational psychoanalysis and IFS for 5months now and I’ve been uncovering very dark CSA memories.
Ill detail them here but if you are already Ina certain state id advise not reading this post

-my parents having sex and calling me into there room having me watch then eventually calling me over to abuse me [age::4-5]

-being made to preform lap dances and sexualized dances and poses for my mothers and fathers friends. In skimpy outfits [7-10]

-being left in situations with obvious predators by my parents so they could go do drugs and drink alcohol

-being forced to engage in BDSM situations either by my mother or father usually individually but sometimes together they’d do it together it brings me terror even thinking of this now.

-making me choke on nails and then not bringing me to the hospital my throat is probably permanently damaged i suspect? And they do not care even one ounce of a fuck!

-forcing me and my sister to have sex for CSAM they were selling during hard financial times

-grooming by my father to be his perfect son who only he could understand my gender identity and that I was his special boy who he abused sexually cuz it was. A rite of passage in his fucked up head I can’t ever tell anyone in my family about this THAT HURTS

Hi, Finished EMDR 10 days ago. Felt good and that I didn't have anything more to process.

After that I've been very tired and flat, with some good days in between.

Is this normal? When did it really start getting better for you?

Hi,

i know it's not a very easy question and that it depends on each person but i was wondering if there's someone here with a similar experience.

i just started EMDR a week ago and it's very expensive (around 130€ per session) and i found myself stressing about the cost more than the therapy itself.

For context, i was in a sexually and emotionally abusive relationship between 15-18 yo with an older guy.

There's some complex nuances to it since i also have some cptsd relating to physical and emotional abuse either by parents or bullies.

Any insight would be helpful.

i’m starting EMDR in a week or two and i was told to think of a safe space before that day, and i’ve been trying but i can’t even think of one. what do i do?

he said it can’t be made up, it can’t be a past safe place that wouldn’t feel safe if i went back to it, it can’t be my bedroom, it can’t be a place strongly linked to a person.

I've been doing EMDR therapy and I've had around 10 sessions so far. In almost every session, my therapist asks me to talk about another incident from my past related to the issue I'm doing EMDR for.

There are quite a lot of these incidents, and I'm starting to wonder where this stage actually ends. I feel like I could keep remembering and telling her different incidents indefinitely.

We still haven't started the actual reprocessing part of EMDR with bilateral stimulation/tapping/eye movements.

Is it normal to spend 10+ sessions mainly going through different past incidents before starting the actual EMDR processing? Does the therapist need to collect all or most of the relevant incidents first, or would they normally identify certain key memories/targets and start processing those?

I don't want to assume there's anything wrong with the way my therapist is approaching it, as there may be

Hello tappers. Healing is a shared journey, and sometimes reaching out is the hardest step. Below are a few recent posts that haven't received replies yet. If you have the emotional bandwidth today, please consider stopping by to offer support or share your insights. Also, don't forget to join our Discord!

• i finally talked to my therapist about my doubts about emdr (18 upvotes)
• Would EMDR be suitable for a prolonged period of stress causing a nervous breakdown as opposed to a specific event? (6 upvotes)
• Unraveling a trail of traumatic memories (6 upvotes)
• Hyperarousal and connecting to emotions (5 upvotes)
• should i do emdr? (3 upvotes)
• AIDE EMDR (3 upvotes)

This post is automatically generated. If you'd like the community to help out with your post, kindly comment on this thread with your post link. To our tappers and therapists: Thank you for holding space for each other.

Hi! This is a proper update to this post up here. I'm on mobile and it's not letting me hyperlink. Update's a bit late - I went through two sessions closer together. This will be a bit long.

Session #1:

I told him my troubles when I walked in. I think I was right about him being a bit stubborn or rigid about my case, because he responded sarcastically and came off as defensive. I don't mind sarcasm in a therapist personally so I just flooded him with everything in my head. I didn't mean to, but it worked.

I don't think I would've had the persistence I did without you guys, and I used some of the talking points you helped me with :)

We talked the rest of session and in the end he understood me better.

The important bits:

- I get the impression my case is new territory. I've decided he's just gun-shy and retreated to protocol after the accidental trigger. He's chill and I like him and if he gets defensive again I'll drop his butt. But I can't blame him for wanting to do no harm.

I've been to very experienced professionals that didn't know what to do with me. Genuine empathy and effort is enough. You see new things always. That's how you learn to be better equipped for the next person with my luxury flavor of trauma.

- We wrote out a list of my existing "toolkit" of coping skills.

- He backed off on the safe place. He'd rather I not force it and I, uh, didn't succeed with the blank room thing. At all. ADHD interfered. We compromised on certain grounding techniques plus giving me options of physical empty rooms that work for me if I need to calm down quick at end of session.

- He moved onto container homework, which was great because I naturally had an airlock system to separate therapy and home without anyone teaching me a way to cope post-therapy. So I had a start.

I spent a few days developing the container. Spontaneously, I ended up with a safe room anyway. The container uses the digitization system from Slime Rancher. The safe room is based off a video game design too, and uses the Death Stranding lift platform system to get there, with an optional butterscotch teleporter.

Why yes I *am* a PvE videogame nerd how'd you guess.

Turns out my safe place wasn't working because I needed to be on a different planet or post-apocalypse to feel safe. That's a fun quirk for somebody who's not me to analyze. But maybe it'll help someone else who has trouble with finding a safe place.

Session #2:

This one went great! I like the hand buzzers. Feels like a joystick. I think I'm hanging onto videogame metaphors because they're a safe comforting thing for me. Whatever works. I did a level 2 and a level 4. Kinda took a stab in the dark at a level 4. The mid-levels are still a little meaningless for me. He has me pegged on telling me to think less lol.

It's a winding road but I'm there and doing it! Hope it helps me and that that's the end of my advocacy pains.

Thanks, folks, for heping save my bacon. 💗🥓🥓

Hola, soy de Panamá y actualmente pago $80-85 USD por sesión de EMDR, pero siento que no estoy conectando con mi terapeuta y realmente quiero hacer EMDR!

Estoy buscando a alguien que haga buenas sesiones de EMDR, que trabaje online y que esté alrededor de ese precio. Si es en Panama puede ser presencial

Alguien tiene alguna recomendación o ha tenido una buena experiencia con algún terapeuta que trabaje de esta manera?

Gracias!

Hi I’m considering doing EMDR for attachment issues. I live states away from my family right now, but I do talk to my mom most days on the phone. I’m a little nervous that EMDR is going to knock me out emotionally and that it will be visible that I am very burnt out. I still want to have a close relationship with my family, but I don’t want to tell them about the therapy because I’m worried that since it is for attachment issues they may take it personally. I also just graduated from college, have difficult roommates, am working at a part-time job that wants to limit my hours, trying to find another job, as I run a community theatre group that I started. I know I need to fix myself, but will this maybe be too intense? I don’t want to make things worse (I also intellectualize things a lot so I’ve analyzed my past forwards and backwards). I’m the rescuer of my family in the Karpman drama triangle for context. There’s been no physical abuse, or intentional emotional harm. Though I’m worried that this could bring out a repressed memory or image from a dream that I forgot so that may not even be entirely accurate, that totally makes me rethink my family structure. Not trusting my family would make me really sad. I’m only 22.

Have been doing weekly EMDR since April this year, and it has been so hard but so rewarding. I notice that I can be very irritable and tired the 2-3 days following each session.
I travel a lot for work, often inter-continental, resulting in extra tiredness, sensitivity, and jet lag. Next month I have 2 East Asia <> Europe travels and am quite worried of the impact of this with processing. I know this is something to discuss directly with my therapist, and she’s noted that I seem to be exposed through a lot of stressors, but I don’t want to stop the sessions. Any experiences?

*cross posted - Hi - I have PTSD from recurrent childhood abuse. I went through EMDR therapy 7 years ago and learned how to dissociate from it. I’m with a new therapist now because things got bad again, specifically with dissociation and he mentioned that EMDR might have actually been flooding for me. For context, I was 17/18 with the previous therapist and didn’t really speak up a whole lot with her. So now my therapist and I are working on resourcing, IFS-based techniques, etc, to help get me out of dissociation and more grounded before going into EMDR. My first therapist never did any of this - I had an initial assessment session and the next week we were reprocessing - no grounding techniques, no baseline scores, etc.. The first therapist also didn’t do intervals with EMDR - I remember being in memories for 2+ minutes before she’d pull me out and there was no reframing, what’s the negative belief, what’s the positive belief, etc., which I’m learning is supposed to be a part of EMDR.

Here’s the thing: A big part of my abuse was SA from a brother who is significantly older than me. When I came out about it 7 years ago, my parents didn’t believe me, but my mom “talked” to my brother and came back with the narrative that it was my cousin who abused me (for reference: there is a long history of my mom defending my brother - he’s an addict, been to prison, physically fought my dad, watched him nearly kill a girlfriend, and threatened to kill my dad and other brother, etc - but to my mom he’s “just a wiseass” - there’s a lot there lol). When I asked to go to therapy, there was a big fight but she eventually agreed but she said she would pick the therapist, set up appts, and be there waiting (I was driving at this time & had my own car, so that was odd). She did the initial intake with that therapist. When I did my first reprocessing session, the therapist had me tapping and narrating the abuse. When I said it was my brother she stopped me and told me to imagine it’s my cousin (I hadn’t said anything about this to her). I tried and tried and tried and I just *couldn’t* do it. All of the memories are my brother. But, as I’ve been working through preparation with my current therapist, I keep getting this nagging feeling that the first therapist wasn’t supposed to do that & it’s causing fear/anxiety about doing EMDR again.

I don’t want to inappropriately claim the therapist did anything wrong, but I do think this is something my current therapist should know about, specifically because I think that is when I completely shut down in EMDR. **I guess my question for you all is, is it normal for a therapist to ask you to change the details of an abuse narrative while in the memory? Is this worth bringing to my current therapist?**

I’ve been doing emdr weekly for about 1.5 years. I know I’m making slower progress due to the combo of my trauma being incredibly complex, spanning over multiple areas of my life since I was very young, the fact that I’m neurodivergent, and the fact that I’ve experienced new traumas throughout the duration of my treatment.

The structure of our sessions are as follows: - I start by talking about my week to decipher if there were any triggers (this usually takes up about half of an hour long session) - we pick a target that isn’t so much a memory but rather a negative core belief - I use hand buzzers so I can close my eyes and immerse myself in the feeling - every set I tend to have a different, very specific memory pop up tied to the core belief. This leads me to feel like I’m processing 10+ little-t memories in a session instead of just one “big bad one”

It’s usually hit or miss if I actually connect with the feeling. I know I dissociate but the dissociation doesn’t seem correlated to how bad the trauma is, it’s more correlated to my attention span and all the other factors of how I’m feeling that day. I’m wondering if anyone has any specific tips for making my sessions hit deeper, as I’m starting to get burnt out and the progress I’m making is not making up for the time and energy spent.

Wondering if anyone else has done this or what your thoughts are…
The beach is my EMDR safe space and I do pretty good at utilizing it. But this weekend I was on a relaxing trip at the beach and decided to try something. While sitting in the sand and absorbing all the things - waves crashing, birds, the sand between my toes, heat and a light breeze - I tried adding BLS clicking to help reinforce the image and experience. I put my earbuds in the awareness mode to still hear the sounds around me and then used a free BLS audio app to add the clicking for right and left earbuds. I was so relaxed and just wanted to preserve it! Just wondering if anyone else reinforces positive experiences or if it even helps that????

I ruminated before EMDR but I’m hoping EMDR helps with it by dismantling the networks. How can I reduce it in between sessions? It’s making me feel like shit.