Asking For Opinions

[erasjkhanson]

Good evening everyone. I have gone through about thirty hours of emdr therapy in the last three weeks. I was hours from suicide when the therapist decided for some reason to call me back on a weekend. I decided to give it a try. I have some abuse so brutal that the therapist has asked to write a paper on it. The abuse was never manifested until I was twenty. I kept it a secret for years. Then I took a job that I respond to bad car accidents and deal with a lot of ugly stuff and am routinely the target of attacks. I never talked to a therapist or discussed any of the trauma I witnessed until it finally reached a breaking point. After that much emdr I feel all raw and disoriented inside. Kind of like someone took my life and my brain and my personality and put it all in a blender and mixed everything up. Has anybody here gone through emdr and had a similar result? The purpose of the intensive emdr was to keep me out of the hospital and home with my family. I took two weeks off work and now am having terrible anxiety before work. My anxiety is also way amped up being in a small room with more than about two people. So many changes I do not know where to start. Can anybody offer any opinions?

 

[Meg_porter94]

When you start having anxiety try touching something that is near you and start counting back from any number, and match you breathing with it. It doesn't help sometimes. But when I can't seem to focus or I'm about to have a melt down I like to match my breathing with something that I can control. It helps most of the time. :)

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Are you saying that you weren't stable when you started the EMDR?

 

[Deleted member 20280]

A grounding technique I have found very very effective is called the Butterfly Hug. Basically you cross your arms over your chest and tap your shoulders in rhythm whilst rocking on your hips. This will in my experience regulate your breathing and bring you back to a more stable frame of Mind.

Oh and welcome to the Forum. You will find a lot of helpful advise and support here.

Kind regards and ((Hugs))

 

[Barconian]

Ten hours a week of EMDR No way known! I am sorry, either you are really over exaggerating or your therapist is an idiot!!!

Good evening everyone. I have gone through about thirty hours of emdr therapy in the last three weeks.

With EMDR, you have to look at your visual image until it breaks away, tastes better, shrinks or what ever it does and that is usually over months or years, because to do ten hours a week over three weeks is one hell of a lot of focus/concentration of something that scares the shit out of you!

I was fascinated with EMDR as I watched the pieces break away, was fun to me. It drained all my energy each time and that was for about 15 minutes a week, over about three months. And I am strong in comparison to many others

 

[erasjkhanson]

I was very suicidal and out of my right mind when I started emdr. I am sorry to say Barconian that I was not over exaggerating. It was trurly ten hours a week for three weeks. One of the Longest three weeks of my life. I want to thank everybody for the device to stop emotional overload. I used it last night and it really helped. During emdr in the office it was so intense I would actually have small seizures when I thought about the incidents. Now I can think about them and have reactions but nothing that can not be handled. It really does work. Thanks again for all of the help and I am hoping to help others with my experiences. Good day all!

 

[Lucycat]

I was very suicidal and out of my right mind when I started emdr.

That in itself breaks all the guidelines regarding safety etc.

I am glad you found the EMDR helpful. It has certainly helped me, but it is ridiculous to put you through such intensive therapy when you are not stable in the beginning. I am just glad that you are claiming it as a success rather than a tragedy.

Did you have ongoing support between every session? Have you now completed therapy or is there a plan for further treatment?

 

[Tinyflame]

@erasjkhanson , what 'device' is that?

 

[Abstract]

I wish I could say differently but I think what they have done is extremely worrying and dangerous. I have not done EMDR myself as I was deemed too unstable at the time. It is going to bring things up and be difficult afterwards so why anyone would do it because you were suicidal is beyond me and seriously worries me. The guidelines also say it should never be done more often than a certain amount in a particular period. I think it is a week if I am not mistaken but many people have to leave longer in between if they are more at risk.

If you are very at risk that is enough to normally exclude the possibility of EMDR until things improve let alone doing it intensively like that. I have never heard of such a thing.

Did they go through in depth preparation of safety management during and after sessions and discuss what came up afterwards in depth? Have they been monitoring your safety and your ability to cope? :(

 

[erasjkhanson]

They have been monitoring me very closely. I wish I could have had more time to do the emdr. Doing it that much was a lot less than ideal. I can see her reasoning as to why she made the decisions she did. By doing it quickly I was able to save my job and my income that my family depends on. I took my vacation time I had built up and used it all at once, visiting her every day that she or I thought I could handle it. Also I had a very strong support system at home. I still have lots of problems, but we are working on them. I am continuing emdr once a week now to deal with not sleeping and feelings of confusion, guilt,and inferiority.

 

[Powder]

A grounding technique I have found very very effective is called the Butterfly Hug. Basically you cross your arms over your chest and tap your shoulders in rhythm whilst rocking on your hips. This will in my experience regulate your breathing and bring you back to a more stable frame of Mind.

I discovered this by accident, and I call it "hugging myself" or "holding onto myself until my inner child receives the comfort from my adult self." Thanks for sharing. Because, for me, this self comforting feels so (can't think of a word for it, hmmm. "intimate?") personal? I haven't felt strong to share it but I can second your advice, especially for those who suddenly regress to the terrified child state. It does work to help reassure that child while empowering the adult to take back over. Love is powerful. Self-love is alchemy of the finest gold in the human spirit.

 

[Barconian]

I am sorry to say Barconian that I was not over exaggerating. It was trurly ten hours a week for three weeks.

This has puzzled me all day @erasjkhanson ... EMDR (eye movement desensitisation therapy). Did the therapist wave their hand (hypothetically) back and forth for 2 hours a day 5 days a week or did you do CBT or something along with it, because I know damn well that I could not focus on an image for that long, apart from the mental strain I would endure as I would keep that picture in front of me! And after 30 hours you have to go back for more (I could have broken the image down to single pixels in that time)? The image would fade on me and I could not always get it back no matter how hard I tried!

Please for forgive my rudeness, erasjkhanson! My concern is that other people would be disillusioned, thinking that it can be done for them when it sure bloody can't! And if you are at a suicidal level in your life, then I doubt your T has a brain in their head because you are still needing more after that time!