Does Anyone Have Experience Of EMDR?

[KP the nut]

(((Micksgirl)))

Be proud of yourself for sharing. It sounds as if your EMDR is well qualified.

Our next visit was the day before the 18th anniversary of my mom's death, so we just did CBT.

My T would also not do EMDR if other things were going on, one of those was dental surgery 50 mins after the session ended. I was also exhausted, but T warned me about that. I always came home and went to bed. The dreams were there as well, again T had warned me and told me it was my minds way of continuing to process information.

I finished EMDR 2 weeks ago and so far so good. I am still on meds and have no plans to start coming off them for a while.

I wish you continuing healing, you may fall back, it is like a rollercoaster but it does get better.

KP

 

[Iam]

So, I guess my point is, not every session is always going to be magical, but I still feel like I made progress. It was hard for me to admit I needed help.
Thanks to all of you who were brave enough to post before me and who helped me through last night, which was a rough one.

Hi Micksgirl,

Kudos to you for admitting you need help. I think it's pretty common for those of us who endured major childhood trauma to admit that.....it makes us feel vulnerable. I'm glad to hear that EMDR is working for you. I've been doing it since last Oct with a T who is very well trained in it. You're right sometimes we don't seem to be making huge progress, only small steps. Then there are those rare sessions where I come out of it with a "WOW, I can't believe how much I was able to release." Trauma therapy usually makes things much worse for awhile. The nightmares, sleepless nights, anxiety attacks & incredible sensitivity to triggers can make us want to give up, but it is so worth pushing past it. We've had to take it very slowly because of the multiple traumas, sometimes just needing to take a break and do CBT, other times some present issue must be addressed. It's taken so much longer than I ever thought it would, but again.....so worth the hard, at times, agonizing work. Keep it up Micksgirl!

 

[micksgirl]

KP and lam - thanks for the words of encouragement.

Had my third session and felt good about the outcome, but still exhausted after. Took me two days to get back to feeling "regular" (whatever that is). And of course tonight I can't sleep - go figure.

For those of you who have been doing this a while, does the "recovery time" needed after a session lessen? I'm an attorney and I had a deposition the morning after my late afternoon EMDR session and I could barely make it to and then through that, even though I had gone to bed at 8 p.m. and slept until 8 and again had very vivid dreams (not nightmares - some of the stuff in the dreams were very pleasant, they were just super color saturated and I remembered them in great detail). And then the next night, went to bed pretty much at 5 and slept through until 8 again (but with no dreams). And today needed to leave work early for a nap. And now can't sleep. I have a ton of work travel coming up and am trying to figure out how to schedule/plan my sessions. Have any of you had a morning session and then "slept it off" during the day? And then slept that night? Did you feel sufficiently refreshed?

Any and all thoughts on this appreciated. And, again, thanks so much to all of you for sharing your experiences. Y'all are really really helping me and I'm very appreciative. My T is on a much needed vacation, so even though I emailed her, I won't get an answer back from her, so thought I'd reach out here.

And, even though this kinda sucks, I'm going to keep pushing through - I'm not terribly process oriented (much more goal oriented), but I know you have to stick through it and I am feeling much better about a lot of things.

Thanks!!
-m

 

[maddog]

Hi Micksgirl. I just wanted to say hi, and to say thanks to you for your incredibly honest and eloquent acount of your EMDR experience. I just stumbled on this thread recently, as you did, and am interested to read it. I've been in trauma therapy for some months now, and my psych is waiting to do the EMDR training (there are only 2 accreditted training programmes he favours in Australia apparently and the waiting lists are enormous). He is enthusiastic about us working on EMDR as soon as he is ready to roll with it. I am... I don't know, I'm just confused and lost, and trying to trust in his judgment, the way I so often do.

I also wanted to say that while I have no answers, I have every empathy for your struggle to continue to work a high powered job while in therapy. I'm certainly not an attorney, but I do have a very intense and busy job in the public service and continuing to work fulltime while managing therapy and, most particularly, managing my current state/life/situation, has been a greater and more overwhelming challenge than I could ever have imagined. So often i wonder if I shouldn't be on extended leave... and yet there are bills to pay, and more than that, the routine and structure of work are sometimes integral to geting me out of bed in the morning. That and the fact that almost without exception, my support network is within my workplace, and i know that as difficult as it is, it's better for me to work than to not work. I have been blessed by the compassion and flexibility of my workplace and my boss in particular, who is one of my primary champions and whose support is one of the reasons I am here today.

Sorry, rambling, just wanted to say g'day and to wish you all the best, and I look forward to hearing more of your EMDR story as you're able to share it.

Maddog

 

[Iam]

Hi Micksgirl and Maddog,

I sure admire your determination. You both are very strong and courageous to continue working thru therapy.

Micksgirl, I suppose that it is different for each individual as far as the intensity in EMDR goes. How many, the length of time and the types of traumas we endured influence how long it takes as well as our general personalities. My PTSD is from childhood abuse, ongoing with my mother still (well I should say she still tries). I was also raped at knife point by the neighbor across the street from my grandparents when I was 7 yrs old, among other stranger sexual molestations. I give this background only as a reference point for the length of time it has taken me.

I've been in intensive therapy for 2 years now. I started with a LCSW (licensed social worker here in the USA) who eventually dx'd me with PTSD. Unfortunately PTSD is out of his realm of expertise so we decided I should find a qualified therapist who does EMDR. I still see my original T once a week as well as weekly sessions the EMDR pyschologist. I started with her 1 year ago.

I had already written out all my major traumas and with a year of therapy behind me I think I may have been ready for EMDR more than most. It certainly gave my T immediate material without having to do all the diggin. I was easily triggered at that time so we spent a lot of time just doing the grounding and "safe place" work necessary before starting on the traumas.
To answer your question Micksgirl, it does get easier. Early on the intensity and exhaustion of working on the traumas was extremely difficult at first. It took days to regain an equilibrium. As I stated in my prior post there were times when we would have to take a break from working on a particular trauma and just work on getting me back in balance. Successfully processing a couple of major traumas gave me a lot more confidence and peace in getting through others. I do have to say that I still get thrown sometimes. Last week for instance, something came up totally out of the blue that I was unprepared for during our session. I literally sat in my car for 10 minutes to calm down before driving home. It's an hours drive and by the time I got home I was pretty even keel. I have to admit that I was quite tired for days afterwards. Fortunately this isn't the norm for my sessions anymore.

Both of you talked about working during this phase of therapy. There are definite positives of doing so in that it gives your mind a distraction from all the therapy. If you can keep working that is probably the best! I am fortunate in that I was able to quit my highly stressful job to focus on therapy. I am not sure that I could have continued working early on in my therapy as it caused me to be extremely sensitive to being triggered. I am looking at going back to work now, but intend to change careers as I no longer want to deal with the kind of stress my previous one put me under. It's more than that though, I want to do something I really enjoy that gives me satisfaction. I think I can handle "the right type" of stress now, but it remains to be seen.

Sorry for writing a novel. All that to say, yes it does get easier, but there may still be times when a particular session hits you hard. The great thing is that you gain skills and confidence as you go along that make it easier to pull out of the fog.

 

[micksgirl]

Thanks to everyone for responding! This forum has really been very helpful to me working through these issues and if my experience can help anyone even 1/8 of what everyone else's experience has helped me, then it's good.

I did wonder how many people were working. When I was first diagnosed, my PCP wanted me to just take two weeks off to get on an even keel. But where I work, our cases are "one horse one rider," which means my coworkers would babysit them for me and take care of the immediate stuff, but I'd come back to a huge pile of work and that freaked me out really really badly. So, we decided not to do it. And part of me wonders if having a job with actual sick days, and a pretty cool boss, actually "freed" me to have my nervous breakdown (at the firm where I was a partner, we had neither sick nor vacation days, we were just expected to bill a minimum - high - number of hours per year no matter what). And I've been very honest with many of my coworkers about what I'm going through - I respect them and the very hard work they do and I didn't want them to perceive me in any way as slacking. And I'm lucky to have a marvelous legal assistant and legal secretary who put up with my weird hours and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. :)

I do wish I could fit in more physical activity, and I need to, but with my travel schedule right now, it's just too hard. I'm told that might make me feel better, too.

Maddog - I hope you do get to do the EMDR soon. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but even with the few sessions I've had, I really feel and notice some changes. Even in every day stuff. Like, I always feel like if I'm not specifically invited to something (you know, "Micksgirl, why don't you come to dinner w/ so and so at our house?") when it's mentioned in front of me that I'm NOT invited. Understanding a bit better where people who didn't have the things that happened to them that I did are coming from, I'm working on that. So, the other day in front of me a friend talked about plans. And I mentioned to her in passing. And her response? "Baby, I didn't invite you because you're like my family - I don't HAVE to invite you, you're always welcome." And I believed her. Before I wouldn't have. Anyway, may seem silly, but has made a big difference for me.

lam - thanks for saying it'll get easier. I'll look forward to that. Meantime, I've talked to my boss and basically said I might not be able to come in after a session and I have decent control over my schedule, so even as busy as it is, if I have a trip or a hearing or something, well, then, I will have to schedule EMDR around it (yes, I'd like that to take precedence, but everything can't be perfect). I'm lucky my boss/coworkers/etc. are so understanding. And, Maddog, glad to hear yours are, too. I can't imagine if they weren't.

Another novel, I'm afraid.

 

[maddog]

Novels are always good Micksgirl. I'm so glad to hear that you're noticing some of the less overt, but really socially important, benefits of EMDR - those are things I could really use some respite from as well. So often I question if I'm doing the right thing by continuing to work - the pressure and the expectation and the unyielding need to be "ok" can become utterly suffocating at times, even as I know they give me a reason to go on. And as always, it's the social and interpersonal stuff that can be the most intolerable. I actually have an enormous accumulated leave balance at the moment, something to do with not having taken any holidays for more than 2 years, and I have a neurotic terror of being away from work right now. Very afraid of being left alone to my own devices. So while my body and mind scream for respite and are so burned out from sheer accumulation of work stress, let alone the impacts of the other stuff, I just can't make myself take that timeoff yet.

I've negotiated with my psych and boss to try taking a day off every fortnight - guess we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, sorry, how did this become about me? Please keep us posted Micksgirl, your posts are very affirming.

Maddog

 

[micksgirl]

Anyway, sorry, how did this become about me? Please keep us posted Micksgirl, your posts are very affirming.

Maddog

About you is about me in many ways. It's hearing the experiences that are really helpful. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Iam]

Micksgirl and Maddog, I just had to pop in a share with you that my EMDR therapist thinks that I no longer fit the diagnostic criteria of PTSD!!! We are doing a formal evaluation next week. I have been sleeping thru the night for a long time and I realize I actually have good dreams now. I am no longer hypervigilent, I don't startle all the time. I no longer just lie around and do nothing. I am starting to want to be with people again. The physical pain is gone.

I had a HUGE shift a couple of weeks ago in which I was finally able to take my frozen ego states in. Actually feeling compassion for them and wanting to protect them as well as those ego states being willing to be protected and soothed. Hard to explain it, but I feel like I have finally integrated all of those parts into a whole. It's like each ego state has finally been heard and understood which has released them from the past. Don't know how else to explain it.

I understand that EMDR is NOT for everyone, but boy.....for me, it has worked! That along with CBT and talk therapy. 2 long years of intensive therapy (the last year seeing 2 therapists every week). I had suppressed everything so deeply, but the EMDR allowed it to surface. Simply amazing!

I'm posting this under the Accomplishments thread too. A repeat, but I wanted to share with both of you personally. Keep up the good, hard work....it's worth it!

 

[maddog]

Wow, Iam, you have no idea how heartening it is to read a genuine success story, or at least a story of marked hope and positivity for the future. We see so few of them... but I know they're out there, and I'm glad I could read this today. I'm not yet on the EMDR band wagon and to be honest, am not even sure if I'm ready, but in time I expect we will give this a go, and I will try to bear your experience in mind in shaping some positivity when we do.

Thanks so much for sharing, and please stay well!

MD

 

[micksgirl]

lam - that's wonderful news!! Thanks so much for sharing your success with us!!

 

[Helliepig]

Iam I am with you on EMDR, is wonderful Congrats on your recovery XX