Do I Start Emdr Again Or Not?

[BloomInWinter]

@Hashi , EMDR is no longer just used for exposure therapy. I'd be against using it on the second appointment for that. It's also used to deal with current issues on our mind affecting our activities of daily living. By helping the brain use all resources while a therapist reminds us of our strengths, it can help us calm ourselves.

EMDR can be used with no exposure at all.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I was terrified before I chose to do it but it really changed a lot of my false beliefs I had about myself during and after my many traumas. It changed my life for the better. But I also believe I was ready for it.

What works for one may not work for another. Just plain common sense. I only had a limited time to do mine so I worked on the worst traumas in my life and no more intrusive haunting thoughts about the bad memories.

Mabe you need a second opinion with another therapist before you decide. It sounds like you are very fragile right now and your needs and wants are very special and you have to work from where you are at right now. I would use caution since it so new to you and you do not sound ready for this kind of therapy.

I wish you the best.

 

[desiderata310]

Just walked out of session. Head hurts. Feel brutalized. Can't drive yet

 

[joeylittle]

Try and just sit and breathe; if it's an area where you can walk around, getting a little bit of motion in your body might help.

I'm so sorry today was rough for you.

 

[desiderata310]

I'm going to post more later when I get to a computer again. My therapist came through was very helpful . Had another appointment today- no EMDR. Had a debriefing session essentially. He expected this to be a difficult weekend and had pretty much cleared his schedule in case things went badly for me.

Much good came out of the debriefing and I feel a good bit better. Hoping for sleep tonight!

 

[marylouise]

@Desiderata
It's great how you make use of exercise. Glad you're feeling calmer and safer. Hope you got some sleep.

 

[desiderata310]

I can't say that everyone's EMDR experience would be anything like mine or not.

When we started on Friday we started talking about trust issues: my ability to trust my therapist vs what happened with my ex and how he had betrayed my trust and my INABILITY to trust in general. From there it ran on its own to my kids and my feelings of inadequacy of being a parent and then to my belief that I don't have any right to be here and that I shouldn't have been born. During that, a single incident that plagues me in dreams came up. We TOUCHED on it but didn't delve too deep there.
We wound things up and he encouraged me to keep in touch over the weekend. When I left I felt a little off but not terrible. As the evening wore on I got a bit more anxious and tried to shut down. THAT's when things got bad.

Nightmares are always a problem for me and I have a recurring nightmare that came up and kept me awake most of the night. I wasn't in too great a place so when my therapist texted me in the morning to check in on me, he wanted to meet for another session. I was on high alert by then but he wanted to push through the nightmare (it was an actual event that happened)

It. Was. Miserable.

I remembered details that I didn't think possible and I got lost and was barely aware that I was in the office with my therapist. This despite his best efforts to bring me back and keep the buzzer times super short. It was exactly like having a flashback except I was SOMEWHAT aware that he was in the room with me. I had JUST a toe in present day.

When I left that evening I was dissociated, confused and exhausted. I wasn't communicating well at that point and my therapist wasn't aware that I was in a bad way. I wound up adding to this thread while waiting to try to drive home. I was sitting in the parking lot for over an hour trying to get clear headed enough to drive.

That night was terrible. I was self destructive, slightly suicidal, and shut down early trying to sleep but the nightmare was back with a vengeance and when I woke from it I wanted to self-harm in a really bad way. I actually got up, and drove around town (NOTHING is open around here after midnight!!) looking for some place that sold what I needed so I could cut (I haven't done it in years).

I managed to get about 3 hours of sleep that night and my therapist, knowing that I had had a difficult evening texted me EARLY to check in, wanted to meet that morning. We wound up having about a 2.5 hour debriefing that time. No EMDR that time. We talked through what had happened, he got me in a different head space. And he started a mantra with me that he now occasionally texts to me: "It wasn't right".

When I asked him if it was really necessary to go back through that entire memory and make me remember so much of it (I was remembering smells and textures, conversations that were happening around me) he said that the problem with me is that because of the nature of the early abuse( was rejected and told that I was not wanted and should have been aborted in addition to the abuse) I don't have a foundation to work on. So in a way, yes, this is going to be painful and difficult to deal with so that he can build something for me to work from. Hence trying to start with trust: he's trying to find ways of establishing trust with me. I've been... somewhat resistant to that but I have to give the man credit, he's actually been able to break through a bit.

I apologized for ruining his weekend. He said that he knew that this weekend was likely to be very difficult for me he kept his calendar clear to make himself available to work with me and kept his phone on a close at hand. Good thing.

After that, 2.5 hour session, I needed time to think and just be alone so I did a 75 mile ride up the coast solo. My therapist kept tabs to make sure I was ok and texted me again this morning to see if I had slept any better. I had the nightmare again but it has changed a bit. Morphed. He said this was progress.

He wants to try EMDR again this weekend but with a house full of family (I will have my oldest here by then plus his gf) I am not so sure that scrambling my brain would be the optimal way of spending this weekend. Three day holiday weekend or not.

He is also looking to move my appointment time to a little later in the day. One thing that is a problem is that I am always jumpy and edgy and since I can hear people moving in an out of offices, walking behind the building and slamming doors (as they are leaving) I am jumpy and easily startled.

So the question is would I do it again? It's Monday after losing my weekend to that hell. I'm not thrilled about it but I can say that progress was made. How much I can't be sure but I know that something has certainly changed since I walked in to his office on Friday afternoon of last week.

I guess I would and will do it again. I would NOT however do it with a therapist who wasn't ready to work that consistently.

 

[Hashi]

... he wanted to meet for another session. I was on high alert by then but he wanted to push through the nightmare (it was an actual event that happened)
It. Was. Miserable.
I remembered details that I didn't think possible and I got lost and was barely aware that I was in the office with my therapist. This despite his best efforts to bring me back and keep the buzzer times super short. It was exactly like having a flashback except I was SOMEWHAT aware that he was in the room with me. I had JUST a toe in present day.
When I left that evening I was dissociated, confused and exhausted. I wasn't communicating well at that point and my therapist wasn't aware that I was in a bad way...

I'm confused. If I understand correctly, your therapist is continuing to do exposure work using EMDR and you're left feeling brutalised (your word) and struggling to cope?

I thought the idea was to do less trauma-focussed work with EMDR? Of the type that @BloomInWinter was talking positively about - non-exposure, strengthening work.

Sorry if I've misunderstood. I don't think I can be understanding right. I can't imagine your therapist is pushing you to do EMDR exposure again, with all the fallout, without having worked with you to seriously build up your coping and strength.... is he?

 

[desiderata310]

He wanted to work through the nightmare because it has been so prevalent recently. Said we needed to work through this stuff before we could move on to the recent events; to get to the root of how I view myself and why. I know that he has been trying to get me to trust and rely on him more which is terrifying to me. This weekend, he was texting me pretty regularly to make sure I was ok.

He seemed to think that he had made a chink in some of my long held beliefs about myself because I started asking why things had happened to me.

I don't know.

I don't know how this is supposed to go.

 

[StellaBlue]

I apologize in advance, because reading through this thread is very confusing to me. That said, there seems to me to be a lot of red flags in what you've written @desiderata310. Believe me, I get that trauma therapy is painful...but coming from someone who has been retraumatized by therapy (and retraumatized myself by trying to push too hard and dig too deep), I agree with the others in saying you may want to consider backing off the exposure work right now.

 

[joeylittle]

Said we needed to work through this stuff before we could move on to the recent events; to get to the root of how I view myself and why. I know that he has been trying to get me to trust and rely on him more which is terrifying to me.

If I were you I would very clearly ask your T if this is what he is after. I think good communication is key, and its possible you and he aren't really on the same page at all about any of this.

What he's saying (if you heard him right) is that you need to challenge your core beliefs before you can move forward. This is really an opinion; my T would say the opposite, that you need to have good in-the-here-and-now coping skills before you go after those deep core beliefs, and that the deep stuff is best approached sideways- unpeeling various layers of the trauma in the hope that when you dig down into the big, big stuff, you have already begun changing those beliefs, even just a bit.

Now, it's all theory to them - and its reality to us - so the only thing that matters is that you keep trying to sort out how you feel about it all. But I just want you to know that it's not a requirement of trauma therapy to immediately go after processing our worst stuff.

It also sounds to me like this issue of trusting him is a big deal, and a great topic might be getting specific about those trust issues - are they specific to him, or do you think they are transferring from somewhere else? If they are specific to him - you could do some work shoring that up.

I think it's good to work through the road blocks with a therapist at least a bit; otherwise you can end up bringing your same problems with therapy itself into any therapeutic relationship, if that makes sense.

 

[desiderata310]

OK. trying not to be ridiculous about this but I really feel like I've done something terribly wrong.

Joey, yes, he is going after core beliefs. One of my main ones being that I shouldn't have been born. I was an unwanted child that was originally supposed to have been aborted and was reminded of this fact often enough.

We met again yesterday and talked through some things mostly stuff that came up as a result of the "fall out" from EMDR this past weekend. He brought up the intense sadness and isolation that I feel from the result of the things that happened to me. I found I did a lot more thinking during therapy and less talking yesterday. I didn't mean to but I got lost in thought. He commented at one point that I seemed to be "processing a lot" of what he was saying to me. I was.

He pointed out that my first time through EMDR I went on high alert and was in a really bad spot for weeks and this time it was more like 48 hours. He felt he could get that to where I almost nothing the next go round- which he wants to take place this weekend. This time only 1 session of EMDR followed by a session the next morning early to "debrief". Safety plan in place that I can call, text whatever at any point.

I AM in a better head space overall today than I have been in... probably years. I was actually able to walk into therapy yesterday not at "DEFCON 5" and he noticed this. It was a first. Usually I am already pretty triggered when I walk in to therapy. I was more like... well... me when I am not triggered or anxious.

I actually DO trust my therapist. Which um... well, that's huge for me to admit. He did say that he wanted to let me know that while it was possible that he would mess up he was NOT going to betray me. (that IS a huge issue for me)

I don't know what to think. On the one hand it was miserable and I was in a bad spot for a couple of days and everyone here was telling me that it was a terrible idea and I should find another therapist because he's done everything wrong. On the other hand, I have JUST gotten to a place where I actually feel like I can trust my therapist and while it was horrible and I am not looking forward to the next session, I think the session did good.

Sorry. Not trying to be difficult about this I'm just not sure what to trust anymore. Most of you have already been through tons more therapy than me and actually know what to expect.