Am I Playing With Fire (emdr Related Question)

[Dali77]

Hi all,

There is a video on youtube where you can preform ''self administrated emdr''. I will address the dangers later on but first want to come clean on what I have been doing

Since I have a personality disorder along with C-PTSD I have been looking for some kind of relief for a long time. The good news is that I have completed the first two stages of grief. And soon I will be trying to bring out all the abuse that been going on in my childhood to the surface. I dont look forward to being stuck in stage 3 for decades so was wondering if EMDR could help me. I am willing to confront all the hurt from the past but im scared couse I dont know for sure what is in there. The unknown scares me more then the pain from the past

So I have been watching this 10 min vid on youtube. While thinking about very general emotions I had to go threw while still a teen. Stuff like being scared, feeling inadequate , worthless , shame , anger , helplessness ect. Would go trew great length to avoid any specific situations from the past as I do not know what I could trigger. So I kept it very general without going in to detail

After preforming this kind of therapy of myself for 2 or 3 hours combined in a time span of a week. I was pleasantly surprised about the results. It seems to have released a decent amount of emotions( as I feel them racing threw my body) . You could literately ''feel'' the new connections being made in your brain . My neck and shoulders have never been this relaxed and loose

But im scared to proceed with this because I KNOW that its very dangers to preform this on your own without a T. You will need someone to bring you back into the save place in case you triggered something ''too big''. The other dangers are re-traumatisation or braindamage whatever you want to call it . If this happens you might want to hurt others or selfharm. All things Im looking to avoid for obv reasons :P

Would it be stupid to proceed with this? Even if you where to keep your focus very shallow when thinking about unpleasant emotions . Avoiding touching anything that might upset you . Or am I risking danger even with this cautious approach

My apologizes for the grammar. English is my 3th language

 

[Momofthree]

First off your grammar was good so no worries there ;) Second, I'd say you are indeed playing with fire, the thought of EMDR with a T scares the living daylights out of me let alone with a YouTube video! I'm glad you have gotten relief with the video, but at what risk? The mind is so unpredictable and complicated, you may think you're staying 'shallow' but then you walk off a ledge into 20 foot deep water with a rip tide and no life rope! Please find a T that is properly trained in EMDR before you go any further.

 

[Frogs88]

Yeah, I have considered this myself at times but knowing how powerful a tool EMDR is I wouldn't dare doing it on my own. I don't actually think anything terrible would happen but in my EMDR sessions I have ended up vomiting and having a lot of trouble with stopping breathing and I just need somebody there to remind me of the coping strategies I should be putting into place when that happens. Somebody to talk me down. Plus there was a point in the midst of my treatment where it stopped working and the therapist had to adapt what she was doing to get the process working again, a youtube video does not allow for that kind of adaption or support. Obviously it is up to you and you are in control of your own recovery and you get to make your own decisions about it but I do think you need to consider at least having an action plan written out in front of you of how you are going to look after yourself if any emotions or memories come up that are too much for you to handle because in the moment you might not be able to think how to properly look after yourself. Can you have a safety person to call, can you have a safe place to go, that sort of thing.

 

[Justmehere]

I have done EMDR both with a therapist and on my own. My therapist taught me how to self administer EMDR for "installing" postive resources and thoughts. I then tried it for triggers too. I have had good outcomes and some very negative dissociative experiences when too much was stirred up - both via therapist and self administered EMDR. In the end, EMDR wasn't the right tool for me to process traumatic memories, but was and still is helpful for smaller stressors and triggers and reinforcing positive thinking and imagination.

Under the right circumstances, I think self administered EMDR can be a useful tool. However, there are some strong reasons why it might be a good idea to pause before you proceed.

Trained professionals are not the end-all be-all to recovery. I admire your proactive spirit working through your recovery. EMDR can't really damage the brain. However, it can make PTSD symptoms very bad, encourage your brain to learn things (create neural pathways) that are unwanted, and make is easier to dissociate and lead to symptoms much worse than you may have experienced up until this point. I know you want to do self administered EMDR to get through processing the trauma and resolving PTSD symptoms faster, but it is precarious to do it without a therapist to consult with if things do get worse and beyond what you can handle on your own. EMDR or not, it is important for PTSD sufferers to have a robust safety plan to handle any worsening of symptoms and a good support system that would include a trained trauma therapist who can help work through any difficult matters.

The good news is that I have completed the first two stages of grief. And soon I will be trying to bring out all the abuse that been going on in my childhood to the surface. I dont look forward to being stuck in stage 3 for decades so was wondering if EMDR could help me.

As far as the stages of grief, are you taking about five stages of normal grief proposed Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying? The five stages I'm referring to are 1.) Denial and isolation 2.) Anger 3.) Bargaining 4.) Depression 5.) Acceptance. These stages are applicable to normal grief. Even in the case of the normal grief process, people don't really "complete" one stage, and never ever return to it. As people work through the stages, sometimes they re-visit other stages. Grief about trauma is especially difficult and complex, and doesn't usually follow this neat and easy path through each stage, never to return to that stage. It is usually a lot messier.

You seem to be unclear as to how much trauma there is, and that is a huge red flag. If you have any dissociate or amnesia symptoms, EMDR could bring stuff up, without you knowing what is up, and the consequences of re-traumatization are very real. Even trained professionals are told to proceed very cautiously with doing EMDR on people with dissociative symptoms of any kind. You are playing with fire, and it's not just playing with fire, but doing it to heal from the effects of already being burned/traumatized. It's not worth the risk of creating new trauma.

You tube has some good info and a lot of very very sketchy and downright dangerous info. Don't risk all your recovery and mental health on what someone on you tube says. Or what anyone online says, including here! Keep learning as much as you can on your own, but spend at least a little time consulting with a professional who can know you and at least help guide you through the process and be there to support you if it does get much worse than expected.

Focus on using the EMDR for reinforcing positive thinking and resourcing. (Therapists do this quite a bit with people with PTSD and even for people without PTSD) and find some more outside support and safety planning before you dive into the trauma any deeper.

There are other techniques you can learn and do on your own without so much risk. Self administered exposure therapy is much better studied and doesn't come nearly as many risks as self administered EMDR. Learning DBT and trauma focused CBT techniques come with zero risk at all, and show great effectiveness in reducing symptoms and distress from unpleasant emotions.

 

[WildMermaid]

Dali, EMDR is a mental roller coaster of a path toward healing, please do not do it on your own. It can teach you some valuable tools for managing memories and dissociation but would be best and safest with a therapist properly trained to administer the concepts.

 

[Dali77]

First off your grammar was good so no worries there ;) Second, I'd say you are indeed playing with fire, the thought of EMDR with a T scares the living daylights out of me let alone with a YouTube video! I'm glad you have gotten relief with the video, but at what risk? The mind is so unpredictable and complicated, you may think you're staying 'shallow' but then you walk off a ledge into 20 foot deep water with a rip tide and no life rope! Please find a T that is properly trained in EMDR before you go any further.

Thanks for the kind words and the warning. Ive come to a point that I just dont care how much it would hurt. Im well aware that I wont be healed 100% but I know I can reduce the symptoms of cptsd if I succeed in processing some old sours from my childhood

As scared as I am I am willing to go threw ''hell'' in order to achieve my goals

 

[Dali77]

Obviously it is up to you and you are in control of your own recovery and you get to make your own decisions about it but I do think you need to consider at least having an action plan written out in front of you of how you are going to look after yourself if any emotions or memories come up that are too much for you to handle because in the moment you might not be able to think how to properly look after yourself. Can you have a safety person to call, can you have a safe place to go, that sort of thing.

Out of curiosity what did your T end up doing to make the therapy work again?

I did have some backup plans in case shit hit the van . From what I understand it is important to bring to client back into safety . So my thinking was by doing some grounding exercises I would be able to achieve this. As I type this sentence I see how incredible naive this thinking is lol. I do have some support group but doubt they understand how to bring me back into a save place

Plan B was to apply some eft as it did work for me on some issues. If I could get threw the first 5 min of some unbearable pain that would be triggered I know I can reduce the intesenty if I just keep myself calm enough

Last just screem out to G-d

 

[scout86]

I did have some backup plans in case shit hit the van . From what I understand it is important to bring to client back into safety . So my thinking was by doing some grounding exercises I would be able to achieve this. As I type this sentence I see how incredible naive this thinking is lol. I do have some support group but doubt they understand how to bring me back into a save place

I'm willing to "like" that part of your last post.

Is there some particular reason not to be doing this with the help of a trained professional?

 

[Dali77]

Trained professionals are not the end-all be-all to recovery. I admire your proactive spirit working through your recovery. EMDR can't really damage the brain. However, it can make PTSD symptoms very bad, encourage your brain to learn things (create neural pathways) that are unwanted, and make is easier to dissociate and lead to symptoms much worse than you may have experienced up until this point. I know you want to do self administered EMDR to get through processing the trauma and resolving PTSD symptoms faster, but it is precarious to do it without a therapist to consult with if things do get worse and beyond what you can handle on your own. EMDR or not, it is important for PTSD sufferers to have a robust safety plan to handle any worsening of symptoms and a good support system that would include a trained trauma therapist who can help work through any difficult matters.

This might not be the techical defenition of brain damage but it pretty much is to me. Once your retraumatized the effects are irriversable?

I

As far as the stages of grief, are you taking about five stages of normal grief proposed Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying? The five stages I'm referring to are 1.) Denial and isolation 2.) Anger 3.) Bargaining 4.) Depression 5.) Acceptance. These stages are applicable to normal grief. Even in the case of the normal grief process, people don't really "complete" one stage, and never ever return to it. As people work through the stages, sometimes they re-visit other stages. Grief about trauma is especially difficult and complex, and doesn't usually follow this neat and easy path through each stage, never to return to that stage. It is usually a lot messier.

You seem to be unclear as to how much trauma there is, and that is a huge red flag. If you have any dissociate or amnesia symptoms, EMDR could bring stuff up, without you knowing what is up, and the consequences of re-traumatization are very real. Even trained professionals are told to proceed very cautiously with doing EMDR on people with dissociative symptoms of any kind. You are playing with fire, and it's not just playing with fire, but doing it to heal from the effects of already being burned/traumatized. It's not worth the risk of creating new trauma.

My focus in the past has been to :

1 get out denail

2 to confront my dad the narcissist with the abuse he had put me threw

So im totally new to stage 3 so im not sure what to accept . So thanks for explaining it to me


And yes its unclear to me what out there. Isent that whats to be expected ? Never really dug deep so how should I know in great detail whats happened to me ? That being said You could be right tho. Kinda new to all of this . While I still dissociate its has decresed a decent amount in the past few years.

Ive heared that EMDR is effective for ppl with a single trauma event not so much for ppl with multiple bad experiences. But then again EMDR has come a long way and ive seen many promising results for clients with cptsd. Do you know by any chase how the T approach differs when dealing with a complex individual like myself from a single trauma event client

 

[Dali77]

Dali, EMDR is a mental roller coaster of a path toward healing, please do not do it on your own. It can teach you some valuable tools for managing memories and dissociation but would be best and safest with a therapist properly trained to administer the concepts.

Please do , im really curious on what you have to say

 

[Rumors]

I am curious as to why you won't go see a therapist to administer this if you are that determined to try it? Would you attempt brain surgery on yourself as well??? Because essentially that is what you are doing. I don't know what damage could be done if it goes awry, however I certainly wouldn't try it out of desperity or otherwise. I hope you are able to find some other options that will help you out.

 

[Dali77]

Hi scout86and Roumers,

I dont work so dont have much disposable income . The insurance only covers 9 sessions( Lord know I need much more then that lol) . After that you pay 110 euros per hour. Thats pretty much all my budget for food for the month

Sessions with the T are partly covered for now I might add. It woudent sup price me if a new round of hostaraty mes suers would take that away as well

So while there are options out there I do feel like I need to hurry up and get as much work done as possible. Even if that means risking ''brain damage''