Struggling with emdr

[Zavariell]

I've been seeing my therapist for a year and a half now (originally for talking therapy/counselling) and she started EMDR with me in June last year, after I finally opened up about a sexual assault trauma I'd never told her about. Since then I've been having weekly sessions, some EMDR, some generalised talking to over more immediate problems.

It was going quite well (I thought) at first - I had lots of revelations about how the event linked to other events in my life and how it's affected me. Then my therapist discovered some older traumas related to when I was ill as a child and we started looking at those.

I thought it was going well, but after one of our sessions, my therapist said she was concerned that I was only ever doing cognitive processing. My comments after the sets read like a set of observations about my life and the situation - they're all coherent and I struggle to stay glued to the one trauma I'm supposed to be thinking about. My therapist has tried to keep me more on topic and helped me change my negative cognition multiple times but it hasn't worked. I don't know how to engage with the memories in any other way but what I'm doing right now.

She's also worried that my level of disturbance is always low (never got higher than a 6/10) and usually decreases during sessions rather than increasing. She says I'm clearly doing at least some processing but that I might be blocking the more gut emotional responses somehow and going off on tangents to protect myself. I'm not doing this consciously, in fact I'm trying really hard not to, but I don't know how to access any deeper emotions when in the sessions.

I struggle massively with knowing what my emotions are and usually repress them without even knowing. One of my biggest fears is letting other people see them too, so it could be this that's holding me back. But at the moment I feel like I'm making no progress with the therapy and that no one will be able to help me, including my therapist who seems unsure what to do next. It makes me want to quit and give up.

Does anyone have any advice or have gone through anything similar? And do you think EMDR is right for me or should I be doing a different kind of therapy?

 

[Deleted member 37474]

I find your therapist’s concerns to be odd and opposite of what my emdr therapist told me. The goal is for the SUDS to get down to a 0-1. This happens as the brain converts your trauma memory into a “normal” memory and files it away. Sometimes suds can increase, but it is very normal and expected to decrease. I do know that while processing the suds does have to be somewhat present for it to work (maybe that is her concern), but I would think that 6 is high enough.

The mind is allowed to zip around to the web of trauma links, but we can get blocks. I am currently dealing with one. We had to go to an earlier trauma to undo this block.

Also, you are saying that your negative belief won’t change? Can you give an example of what your negative self belief is and what you are trying to change it to?

 

[saraemerald]

I am doing EMDR too. I am also having a very hard time tapping into my emotions as well. I am in a place in my life where i am way too much in my head and overanalysing and ruminating about how my life has gotten to where i am now and I am somewhat resistant when it comes to self care and healing. I am working through that.
Because of this, I am trying to relax enough. My therapist has been trying to get me out of my head and more into my body. Yoga has been suggested and it does help.
I hope your therapist continues to be patient, knowing it is definitely a struggle to let go of the emotions associated with painful traumas. If she is not patient with this process with you and you honestly start feeling like it is not going anywhere, I would find another therapist. Or maybe you can describe what you wrote in this post to your therapist so she understands.
Our minds and bodies have very powerful ways of trying to shield us from the pain of traumas we have been through.

 

[Muted]

Does anyone have any advice or have gone through anything similar?

Have you done any parts work? From my experience with EMDR it may be that not all of your parts are processing it. Once we worked on parts we had to go back and work through some of the stuff again, because not all of the parts were present when I was originally processing the trauma.

 

[Zavariell]

I find your therapist’s concerns to be odd and opposite of what my emdr therapist told me. The goal i...

Sorry I don't think I explained well enough. Most of the time when I start the session my SUDS are at maybe a 3 or 4 and in one session I've hit a 6 but I've never actually felt that bad. Initially picturing the memory is the worst bit and then when I start my train of thought it gets less intense because I start thinking of other related things rather than the trauma itself. So I think my therapist is worried that I'm not really working with the trauma as such.

I think I might be experiencing a block but I'm not sure what to do about it and we're at the earliest trauma as far as I'm aware.

And the problem is I have a list of about 15 negative beliefs - they are all relevant and feel true so we don't know which one to choose. Some examples of earlier ones have been - I'm useless, I'm powerless, I'm a failure, I'm broken etc. My therapist seems to be thinking that if we can find the right one then it might help me move forwards but at the moment having the belief change all the time is just making me realise how many I've got and it's really discouraging.

Have you done any parts work? From my experience with EMDR it may be that not all of your parts are proce...

I'm not sure if I've done this but had it called something else, what exactly do you mean by parts work?

 

[Muted]

I'm not sure if I've done this but had it called something else, what exactly do you mean by parts wo...

@EveHarrington might be able to explain the different terminology better than I can. But, they are sometimes called alters. It’s basically when you go through trauma sometimes parts of ourselves can get stuck at that age. We develop parts to help us cope with things. Protector parts develop to protect other parts that have gone through trauma from being hurt. @EveHarrington correct me if I’m screwing up this explanation please!

 

[Deleted member 37474]

Sorry I don't think I explained well enough. Most of the time when I start the session my SUDS are at...

I have many negative beliefs as well. We broke my trauma up into pieces and worked on one negative belief with each piece. Now the pieces are starting to mesh together. Which she said will happen. Maybe your negative self beliefs could be worked on in a cbt chart? Also, your therapist probably has other therapists to reach out to for advice. It is her job to figure out how to make it work.

 

[Justmehere]

I tend to over-think and intellectualize everything. There is a good side to it, and it can help with recovering from trauma. But like any coping tool, it can also become maladaptive and a way to escape the work.

When I first tried to address this, I couldn’t really find a way through it in therapy when processing trauma. It had become such a habit to intellectualize everything and escape what I feel. It was just too much to develop a new habit in the hardest situation.

So, I did a lot of things outside of therapy to get out of my head. For a few weeks when I was first addressing this, I kept a log of just how I physically and emotionally felt in my own skin, throughout my week just to keep me accountable to check in with how I felt. Connect to feelings when it wasn’t scary to do so. I also read everything I could about grounding and mindfulness and practices as much as I could outside of therapy.

On top of learning how to ground, and settle in my own skin more, I took up an abstract art, took dance classes, picked up some other expressive hobbies. Controlled, and not trauma focused, but it still stretched me to get out of my head and stop overthinking and start feeling.

One thing that terrified me to try, but helped me connect to emotions, is doing body scans. It’s not about processing or changing or even understanding any emotion, but simply being present in the body with whatever is there, without diving into the trauma. It can be surprisingly calming, and it can help to develop the ability to connect to difficult emotions more when doing trauma work.

Now? Oh, I still try to run from my emotions... but I have practice under my belt of connecting to emotions when it’s easy, and that makes it a lot more doable when it’s hard. When I first started to just sit with what I feel, I seriously couldn’t sit still with SUDS greater than 5 for a full minute without crawling up into my head. No joke. My head would run away. Now? I can sit with SUDS of 9 for an hour without running away from what I feel.

Don’t give up. Take this as a chance to recognize you may not be ready yet (and that’s ok) to connect to the emotions around the trauma, but that you can still do great work to begin to connect to emotions - and that in and of itself is part of healing from trauma for many people.

 

[saraemerald]

I have many negative beliefs as well. We broke my trauma up into pieces and worked on one negative beli...

Thanx. i hope this works for me because I have too many traumas and cannot deal with anymore

 

[Zavariell]

I have many negative beliefs as well. We broke my trauma up into pieces and worked on one negative beli...

Yeah I think my therapist seems to think there's one belief that will encompass everything or will get closer to the root of the emotions for me, but I don't know if that's true. It might be just that all of them are valid but different like yours. I know she's talking to other therapists for advice but apparently she's never come up against hurdles quite like this with other patients before so I don't think she even knows quite where to start. I might suggest to her to start breaking it up and see if that works, thanks!

I tend to over-think and intellectualize everything. There is a good side to it, and it can help wit...

I'm a massive over thinker as well. Half the time I'm thinking about it as if I was the therapist, trying to analyse what might be happening in a patient who'd gone through what I did. The extra layer of distance probably helps me make connections but it means my emotions are nowhere to be found :/

That all sounds really great! I've done a few things like that - I've started yoga, a bit of meditation but it's a slow process. I've always done creative writing and I can write about my trauma in a way that seems emotional, but it's like I'm writing about it happening to someone else, I don't actually feel the things I'm writing. Hopefully more mindfulness might help with that.

Body scans do sound scary! As soon as I'm feeling anything nasty or unidentified I tend to shut down. My therapist has mentioned I need to learn to sit with my feelings but I'm not sure I've made much progress with it.

I think the hard thing is I convinced myself that I was connecting emotionally with my trauma so finding out that I'm still avoiding the worst of it has me all scared again. But I'll try and get comfortable with not being ready yet. This stuff is so hard!

 

[Freida]

I've been chipping away at it for over a year and it's miserable. But when it clicks into place it is so very worth it!

I over think everything and that does slow the process down. My T is always jammering on bout being'"curious" about what is running thru my head instead of looking at it as a problem to solve

We have many times where we don't do ratings or negative thought work at all because I have such a hard time just bringing up the memory. When it's bad she just has me let the memories run so I can get a grip on what I'm seeing/feeling . Then later we go back to working on negative thoughts

 

[Zavariell]

Yeah I think most of the time during the process I'm trying to work out what to talk about next because I feel like I've thought about these memories so many times. I'm running out of things to talk about and I think that's because I haven't stopped to think properly about how I feel or sit with the feelings. I just want to make progress too badly I guess.

Also, does anyone know how exactly the negative beliefs are supposed to work in relation to the memory? My therapist always starts by saying picture the trauma and think about the belief, but I usually don't engage with the negative belief at all. It's just kind of there to the side while I try to imagine the memory. Im not sure what else to do with it!