Wendell_R
MyPTSD Pro
EMDR was overwhelming to my younger parts initially. Not doing the trauma work--we didn't even get close to that. Just experiencing the alternating taps and sounds brought up terrors of being hit relentlessly. Same experience with doing leg taps at home. Initially, that was fine, but then horrible flashbacks came up. So, we went really slowly, taking a whole summer to get used to the EMDR apparatus bit by bit. Then, multiple short sessions of just resourcing.Has anyone else gone through something similar? If so, how did it resolve? How did you articulate your concerns to your therapist?
And for those who mention you spent a lot of time on resourcing, exactly how long? Multiple entire BLS sessions? Or 10-15min at beginning of BLS session, or just 5 min of tapping in resources daily by yourself at home?
My therapist talked about the window of tolerance and brought that up afterward, so it was fairly easy to get used to saying, "last week's session was too much," or "the last session was just about right".
EMDR is a lot easier now for me. We still do a lot of resourcing. If I come in with a peaceful idea or image, we'll take a few minutes to "tap that in." And when we process trauma by EMDR, we usually end in a safe and loving place, bringing up those resources again at the end.