EMDR

[in1peace]

Hi Everyone!
I started EMDR therapy about 4 months ago. I started having memories from childhood that my family couldn't really confirm. I'm 39 years old, so it's hard for my parents to remember much of that. I've had one "bodily" memory and several visual memories of places and what I was doing.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has experience with it and has it served them well?
I stopped treatment because I started panicking around the same time and associated it with the panic. (And also because my therapist made a really insensitive remark to me in front of my husband.)
I'd like to go back to a new therapist and try it again, but I have a lot of fears about it. Now is not the time.
Please let me know what you think of it?
Thanks,
Andrea

"Honey, if ya ain't feelin' the bumps in the road, ya ain't goin' nowhere!" (A wise Georgia Granny's take on living life to the fullest! LOL!)

[Antipodes]

Hi Andrea,

Thanks for the welcome (newbie introduction).

I have had EMDR therapy. I am puzzled why you are, when you can't identify an incident that made you feel threatened. There are cases where repetative incidents can result in PTSD such as bullying. But I am no expert. I take it you have been doagnosed by a competent health professional who is familiar with PTSD? There are several other anxiety disorders that can lead someone to suspect PTSD as a preliminary diagnosis but absence of some facets (symptoms) would exclude it.

Back to EMDR (the reason I replied), I found it semi-useful. It unlocked some memories I had "buried" and it reduced the impact of the intrusive thoughts (I prefer this word to "flashbacks"). So it did desensitise. I found myself feeling uncomfortable during the sessions as if I were re-exposing myself to my traumatic event but I also was completely aware I was safe in my psychologists room. Odd really.

I hope your journey to full recovery is swift and effective.

Antipodes

[pinkscrumpy]

Hi

My friend had EMDR and was glad she did. She also had it for chilhood reasons and it helped her come to terms with this.

MANDIE XX

Will I ever escape this?
Will I ever be free?
Wake me up from this nightmare.
Please just give me the key!

[in1peace]

Hi Antipodes!
Thanks!
I did have a competent professional.. apparently she's the best in the area for EMDR.
There are several ideas about what traumas caused PTSD. I have panicked in hospital situations-probably goes back to when I had my stomach pumped as a child from swallowing poisonous berries. I was very frightened by the whole procedure, although I can't remember any of it. I just know what my mom tells me about it. When I try to recall it, I picture myself on my grandparent's kitchen table. Wierd. I guess the table in the hospital must have resembled theirs or something. Also, I have been dealing with alot of unresolved anger and hurt because my dad was very hostile when disciplining us and very emotionally abusive to me. I can't pick one incident from another that really traumatized me. Just all of the rage he dished out at us kids was collective trauma, I guess.
I also have a bodily memory of being molested but can't recall who or when. I didn't even know that was what was happening to me at the time. I must have been very young.
My brother and I witnessed a bus crash on freeway that frightened us really badly. I can't recall anything we saw, but I can remember shivering in shock.
So there we go.. not really sure if there's one specific thing or lots of collective things. But the EMDR was really calling attention to my childhood and something about that made me really frightened. I didn't want to continue.
Thanks for your input!

And thank you too, Mandie!

"Honey, if ya ain't feelin' the bumps in the road, ya ain't goin' nowhere!" (A wise Georgia Granny's take on living life to the fullest! LOL!)

[Jens]

Hi there, i found this really inteeresting to hear others reactions to EMDR, I have recently stopped doing it as I felt so out of control, it made me feel very distressed doing it and brought up some things i had repressed and this scared me greatly... not wanting to put anyone off it as it also had some positive effects and did help shift a couple of traumatic incidents along and took their intrusiveness away.
I think you need to be in a fairly strong frame of mind to do it and feel safe in the environment and with the person in which you are doing the therapy.

I found i would dissociate alot of the time when i found it to distressing.. on one occasion it took my therapist over an hour to get me back to the hear and now as I had dissociated so deeply. This i am told is a defence mecanism that would have been used at the time of the initial trauma.

I did find it fascinating how it worked, I was just too afriad to continue once some new things came up as I didnt know where they would lead and would ultimately prefer not to know if I can.

Good luck
Jen


I used to have an open mind but my brain kept falling out...

[Karen]

Hi Andrea

You might want to consider finding a therapist experienced in using the Rewind Technique (also called fast phobia cure). There are descriptions of it here and here.

The difference between this and EMDR is that the Rewind Technique does not require you to talk about traumatic memories or relive them as part of the therapy. It is carried out from a dissociated state.



Karen



It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

[in1peace]

Hi Jens!
Thank you for sharing that! All the therapists I've spoken with have really pushed EMDR, like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I really didn't think that it was all that positive for me. I can see how some of it might be useful, but it kept taking me back to my childhood and that put me in a frame of mind that I didn't want to be in. Mainly depressed and self-loathing. That's what my childhood was like. I think, for me, it's better to quit raking up the past and the causes and change my thinking patterns, relearn them, uproot what isn't healthy. I just hated it that none of the therapists would admit that maybe EMDR has it's draw-backs and downfalls just like anything else.

Hi Karen!
Thank you for that! I will research that. I'll bet my psychologist is familiar with that technique. I will ask her about it! Have you used the rewind technique? What was it like for you?

"Honey, if ya ain't feelin' the bumps in the road, ya ain't goin' nowhere!" (A wise Georgia Granny's take on living life to the fullest! LOL!)

[Karen]

Hi Andrea

I have had the Rewind Technique carried out by my therapist and did find it helpful. It is completely comfortable and is carried out while you are completely relaxed, with no need to talk about or think about the actual traumatic event or memory at all.

Before I had this I was having a lot of nightmares and flashbacks, which are certainly now much less frequent than before. My therapist was going to do a further session on this just to reinforce it but then my anorexia became the main focus of our sessions.

I have also seen the technique used to successfully treat phobias.


Karen



It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

[in1peace]

Thanks Karen! Very cool! I will ask about that technique!

"Honey, if ya ain't feelin' the bumps in the road, ya ain't goin' nowhere!" (A wise Georgia Granny's take on living life to the fullest! LOL!)

[Karen]

Let us know how you get on Andrea.

It might be useful to print off some of the information to take with you when you see your psychologist.

Karen



It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.