emdr

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    Do you have real experience with EMDR, or are you very knowledgeable about it? Would you recommend it to others? Why, or why not? (Specifics help.)

    Some people are gung-ho for EMDR, but some say it's little more than attempted black magic. Their complaints also include EMDR practicianers implanting false memories into clients, like during the 'Satanic Panic' of (false) recovered memories of ritual child abuse in the 1980s and 1990s. I need to hear from a huge cross-section of truly knowledgeable people before I make up my mind whether or not to allow my therapist to use it with me. What do you know about it, firsthand? Please share. Thank you very much in advance.

    #depression #cptsd #Autism #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #anhedonia #dysthymia #pda #pathologicaldemandavoidance #anxiety #ocd #add #adhd #asd #AutismSpectrumDisorder #autistics #Dissociation #derealization #emdr #PTSD #executivefunctiondisorder #executivedysfunction #stuck #overwhelmed #trauma #abuse #neglect #abandonment #treatment #therapy #falsememorysyndrome

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    So much crying, so much healing. You’ve got this! #CPTSD

    I’ve spent four years preparing for this. I built up my resources. I’ve learned about my parts of self. I’ve learned how to stay my most adult part of self most of the time. I can speak up for myself now. I know I can be uncomfortable and still be okay. I know that it’s okay if I sometimes need to take medication for my anxiety. I can recognize when I’ve been triggered most of the time. I have cleansed my house of most things that remind me of the dark times of my childhood. I know when I need to take my shoes off and go stand outside to ground myself. I’ve identified lots of memories to reprocess with #emdr .

    Over the past month, I’ve had two intense EMDR sessions — what I’ve been working toward — and they have been successes. One was a recent trigger, one was a dark childhood recollection. Both times were intense, uncomfortable, and full of tears. Sadness. Grief for what should have been.

    But oh my goodness, the end result was such a place of calm. In one instance, healing pain from the previous week. In another, healing pain from decades ago. Both times, I rescued my younger self. He was so afraid, so scared, so terrified, with no one looking out for him. But I am now. I’m strong enough now to relieve him of his fears, his pain, his trauma.

    I still have work to do, but oh my god, how freeing it is to save yourself, to love yourself.

    If I hadn’t journaled the experiences afterward to have the evidence, I wouldn’t believe it, wouldn’t remember the work and the lightness in my soul afterward.

    If you’re struggling, if you’re finding it difficult to wrestle with your past or your present … it’s okay. It might not be immediate, but just keep on showing up for yourself. Even if you have others you need to show up for: don’t forget to be there for yourself, too. It might take a week, a month, a year, or half a decade. But it’s worth it.

    YOU’RE worth it.

    Keep on showing up for yourself, even for 5 minutes a day. Let yourself know that you’re in your own corner. That you’ve got this. That it might be tough and feel insurmountable. But it’s not. You’ve got this. Keep going.

    #CPTSD #emdr #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #Anxiety #PanicDisorder #CheerMeOn

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    Excellent Book! #Anxiety #CPTSD #PTSD #sexassault #DomesticViolence #emdr

    Found on Amazon and has been a great tool while going through EMDR and teauma therapy.

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    Struggling to sleep, whats new?

    I feel frustrated because by the time I think I've started to get my insomnia under control, suddenly it slips out and I'm back to sleeping less and less. My meds are finally working after roughly 20 years of this, but my PTSD keeps making it hard to fall asleep or relax. I finally started EMDR, but I feel like I'm regressing in so many ways. I'm just feeling awful and not getting enough sleep is making everything so unnecessarily harder! Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, since my family doesn't care to belive or validate me. Its so nice to have a space with others who get the struggle.
    #Insomnia #PTSD #emdr

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    Met my new therapist yesterday

    She’s a social worker, has experience in prisons, specialized in PTSD, and certified in EMDR.

    I liked meeting her. She knew many things about PTSD that I hadn’t even gotten to mention like how validation from my dad that he did abuse me was such important moment for me. She basically knew a lot about my feelings before I said them. And she’s worked with Christian’s who are member of the cult my birth dad is in. So she she shares my frustration. She immediately said, “that must have been very isolating. You and your siblings probably had nothing common.” And I was like, “YES!” I’m over here living everything they’re told to hate and avoid. So whenever I’m trying to spend time with them I can’t say a word about myself because it’s all taboo! It’s so upsetting when you’re basically the family “delinquent.” I don’t want to a birth a baby! Oh how dare I exist as a female! 🙄 I don’t want to wear a frilly homemade dress and no dress code can make me!

    I also was able to talk about the abuse from my adoptive mom without worrying about her demonizing her. My mom and I are close. But there’s been stuff between us. So I was glad I could talk about it without tainting my moms image.

    Oh and she had a bug named Mike lol. Mike the pug! He fears people but I assume she wants him to be a therapy dog. His cage is placed right by the patient chair (door open). He refuses to come out. I didn’t touch him since he had those big scared pug eyes. I just waved and said hi. She suggested maybe he’ll come out to see me next time… I’m doubtful lol.

    So I’m actually looking forward to this EMDR thing. She’s so far come across more knowledgeable than any other Therapist I’ve had.

    #CPTSD #PTSD #Trauma #Abuse #emdr #Therapy

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    Trying to get PCOS treated

    So after assuming my PCOS was better after significant weight loss I quit my birth control pills… and finding I was wrong I tried to go back on them. But my body wouldn’t let me get on them. I kept getting a period every other week. So I never got through a pack. So I called my doctor for a new birth control prescription. She took forever and kept asking, “why don’t you see your gyno?”
    Ummm… yea about that…

    My gyno diagnosed me with hypothyroidism when it turns out I had thyroiditis from COVID. It went away. But when she diagnosed me she refused to let me see an endocrinologist claiming falsely that the endo would only see me if I had an autoimmune disease and the she was not going to check for me. Yea it was bull. The endo saw me. But after prescribing hormone treatment my thyroid fixed itself (before taking the meds) and has not malfunctioned since.

    So FINALLY after 2 weeks of talking this out my doctor prescribed me a different birth control. I also start EMDR therapy for my CPTSD 2 sessions from now. And have finally scheduled surgery for my ripped stretched ear. Yep I had 1 inch stretched ears. But one of my earlobes was always oddly shaped. The fat was on the sides and not so much the bottom. The 1 inch truly was glass and too heavy for the misshapen ear to hold so it spontaneously just tore. Not in half mind you but the scar make it appear torn in half. It was close. My other ear had no problems but what you do to one you must do to the other. So I’m having them both fixed. I’ve excepted my dream of big stretched is over and I’ve accepted that. It is what it is. I gave it my best shot. If I could have “normal” sized pierced ears at this point I’d be happy. Which I can do after healing from surgery.

    #earloberepair #CPTSD #PTSD #Trauma #Abuse #PolycysticOvarySyndrome #Doctors #emdr

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    Half my size

    So bought some new clothes today and got my eye brows waxed. Also I guy checked me out. :)

    Also saw my psychiatrist who interrogated me due to my past with anorexia. After anorexia I had binge eating disorder and became 280 pounds. Now I’m skinny mini. Wasn’t fun though. Was irritating. Told her I was going back to therapy. The therapist does EMDR and since 15 years of therapy have failed me she’s hoping EMDR will help.

    To be fair 15 years of therapy I didn’t know I had CPTSD so… perhaps we weren’t working on the right things. Also therapist vary WIDELY in value. You know what I mean.

    #PTSD #CPTSD #Trauma #Abuse #AnorexiaNervosa #BingeEatingDisorder #emdr

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    Over it

    I’m at work, trying to make it through another day. I work in a retail grocery store pharmacy. I’m tired of pissy, entitled people. My #Depression has been banging at my door for 7 days. Nothing is helping. I want to be alone in a dark room and cry for awhile. I’ve tried #Meditation , my husband bought me some flowers, I’ve talked to my #emdr therapist. Am I alone or is anyone else going through something similar?

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    EMDR???

    My psychologist and I are about to start EMDR next week.... I'm alive nervous yet excited. If you've had EMDR therapy, can you tell me your experience with it? #CPTSD #Anxiety #emdr

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    How do I accept that I’m getting better on this long road? #CPTSD

    I’ve been in therapy for four years now, three years with my current and amazing trauma-informed therapist.

    I have made great strides. We’ve spent three years building up my resources and my sense of adult self. Being a verbal processor and someone who needs to come at something from seventeen different angles before I accept the truth — a by-product of my parents, especially my mother, abusing me and gaslighting me — were to the point where I’m ready to really do the hard work of EMDR. There are some memories that I’ll only be able to work on the big D, Desensitizing, because my dissociated memories of some incidents are so fragmented there’s not a lot to big R, Reprocess.

    But in a summer limbo of no therapy because of schedules and surgeries, I’ve found that I’m … okay. I’m … strong. I’m … an adult.

    And this realization that I’m not constantly in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn … is weird. And strange. And uncomfortable.

    Today, I almost had a panic attack while talking to my wife about this for the second time in Ass many days. I like where I am, but I’m so primed and conditioned after a lifetime of being treated as inferior and abused that being kind of “normal” is scary.

    I was able to work through the emotions, mostly, but still did need a Xanax to bring me back and help me focus on the tasks at hand. I’m not ashamed of using an aid — that’s what it’s there for.

    Bit it’s so weird being kind of normal, living a normal life, reacting to most situations in a normal way, able to go back and repair to the best of my ability when I need to, understanding when someone else should repair with me instead of always feeling less than.

    It’s so weird and foreign. But everything is a stage and everything is an opportunity, so I will work through this as I have countless things that have come before.

    If you have felt or are feeling the same way, my heart goes out to you as we transition from caterpillars to butterflies. As we grow even if some around us aren’t growing at the same rate it don’t recognize the changes in us. It’s not for them to notice. It’s these moments for us to live and thrive in.

    #emdr #Childhoodtrauma #Trauma #Anxiety #PanicDisorder #CheerMeOn #CPTSD

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