Emdr Extreme Disasociation, Please Feel Free To Advise

[lighteningdarkness]

I have today had my first EMDR session today. I have been seeing the T for several weeks and I trust her.

It was amazingly difficult, just to keep revisiting the same place with different emotion. I don't think I did it right. The memory is still really painful, although I guess I don't feel like it cuts to think about like before.

Since leaving though I am completely spaced, I can't focus or think. I don't know how I drove home. My husband (who loves me loads but who knows as little as I can possibly manage) is a bit freaked, like I am I guess.

I'm afraid to close my eyes. I feel wired like I can't switch the remembering off. But it's not remembering, I've been there again and let it happen again. Everything I swore I would never let happen again, would never think about let alone feel about again. I can feel what happened and hear him and what I felt about it and me then, is real again.

This is the most extreme things have been. I can feel it all. I'm scared to do anything, I don't want to sleep, I don't want to be alone with my husband, I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be awake. It's all just massively confused and messed up. I can't seperate myself. I can't find my safe place.

I guess I'm hoping that someone will say that this is all ok, that this passes and things get better. It would be just good to get some feedback from someone who knows about how this feels, perhaps to know that this will be ok in the morning?

 

[Hashi]

I'm so sorry you're feeling this. Have you contacted your therapist? If you haven't already done that I think you need to, urgently, to explain how you're feeling and ask for your therapist's advice.

It's possible that your therapist did everything "right" and couldn't have predicted you'd be retraumatised like this. If that's the case, I'd expect her to be concerned and to take steps to help you right now. I do have a slight concern, though, about how she's managing the EMDR given that this has happened. She should be paying a lot of attention to safety, discussing this with you and checking with you. Has she done that? Did she allow time at the end for grounding and focussing on feeling safe? Did she check how you were before you left?

Other people may not agree with me, but I don't think you should ever feel like this after any therapy. Feeling rough, upset, shaken, unable to sleep - yes, unfortunately that does go with the territory. But in my view - and in my experience - therapy shouldn't cause re-experiencing or extreme dissociation/distress.

I think the most important thing is to get help from your therapist. You can work through things like this, but it will be easier with support. In addition, your therapist needs to know what happened and should - hopefully - work with you to avoid it in future. If not, I think you might need to reconsider whether this is the right therapist/right approach for you.

I hope you feel better soon.

 

[Red Feather]

I agree with Hashi. I have heard again and again that stabilisation is part of a trauma therapy, because EMDR is so destabilizing. I had EMDR done on me in a time that I really really needed to be stable. People have told me that my T shouldn't have done that with me. I think she didn't really know what kind of effect it would have on me. I was having panic attacks right and left and was in the middle of having to move and had no place to move to! I think the EMDR brought a lot out and because I didn't have a home, I had to force myself to get stable and then as soon as I had a home a couple months later, I fell into a deep crisis and my PTSD is now full blown.

You need a lot of rest to go through everything that is reprocessing. I hope you can find a sense of safety for yourself. Know that the tiger is not coming to attack, that is just the PTSD talking. Make sure you breathe deeply and feel the ground underneath. Connect yourself to things around you and tell yourself what you are seeing. You can also sit down on the floor and put your hands on the floor and connect to mother earth (if that helps).

 

[lighteningdarkness]

Hi Hashi
I appreciate your response, this is the first time I've really engaged in therapy so I have idea what is 'normal'.

I emailed my therapist today. It's what I tend to do rather than phone, it's easier for me to actually say stuff. So I said how things were last night, I felt I made it clear. I didn't use the word disasociation because I felt that that was my view and as a professional she may not agree. But I said about being spaced and really freeked out. I also said I was still in bed and had spent some hours today staring at the wall. This didn't really get a response and I got the impression she felt this was a normal reaction to a difficult thing

She does check on me through the session, she has to say my name a lot to get me to refocus and gets me to stamp my feet, look at the time and stuff. We did one safe place excercise at the end and I said I couldn't grasp it and was having trouble. I wasn't ok when I left but I guess that up to me to say something.

I have about a week for my next session so will give it some thought, please feel free to respond

 

[lighteningdarkness]

Nadia, thanks for your advice. I managed to walk my dog this afternoon. It was absolutely hammering with rain, I was a bit spaced when I started but the physical feeling was really grounding, far more so than I expected. I can see how phsically connecting and touching can be beneficial.

I'm sorry to hear what you went through. I'm in the middle of a major employment issue, it was me that said I wanted to go ahead (I know it needs dealing with if I'm going to live), I guess I didn't know what the impact was going to be.

I'm safe at the moment, not working and extended family are away so no need to be explaining myself. Thanks again for checking and for your comments

 

[OKRADLAK]

Light-

This happened to me, too. It was extremely distressing, even thinking about it. I was totally trapped, not only in the memories, but even in the physical sensations and smells, etc. about the abuse that I had worked through. It was like I was hypnotized and maybe that is what it is.

I started to think how to fix it and got onto my bike and rode and made my eyes flick as I rode along, saying and thinking I AM OK. I AM OK. I AM NOT THERE ANYMORE.

That is how to originator came up with EMDR. She was riding in a car or walking along a road, I forget which one, and she saw how her eyes would flick to keep up. You know like if you watch someone is a car when they are riding and looking out the window and their eyes flick.

So she said she felt good after her walks and thought that may be the reason.

So I went out and tried to undo it.

Actually, I do not recommend this until you talk to your T.!!

My T came over to my house to sit with me and it did not help. It lasted two weeks at least. BUT that was because I droped right out of T and never went there again.

Please know it will pass. It actually did help for a while for the problem that I went to her for.

I would never ever do it again.

You are safe. You are going to be OK. There are a lot of people here that are surrounding you with comfort at this time!!

(((((((LIGHT)))))))

 

[Hashi]

Hi L&D,

I don't know if your therapist has been in touch since you wrote this?

With any trauma therapy, and especially one like EMDR, safety is really important. Only you can decide whether you think this therapist and/or EMDR are right for you, and if the approach is safe enough.

I don't understand your T's reactions (or lack of them) to you saying you were having trouble with the safe place exercise, or when you emailed a few days ago. But I realise I don't have the whole picture and this isn't my T relationship, it's yours.

Maybe you could talk to your T about all this when you see her next? Whatever you decide to do overall, it might be an idea to keep next session EMDR-free so you and your T can work out how you can both go forward without a repeat of what happened before. If your T thinks what happened before is normal or acceptable, then that will definitely need some discussion to make sure you each understand the other's viewpoint and to decide how comfortable you are with that.

One thing I'd say is that if you decide to continue, check with yourself that it's for the right reasons, and that you believe it can help without retraumatising you. If your reasons are things like availability of therapists, cost and not wanting to find/start all over with someone else, then even though it's tough I think you would need to reconsider.

I'd also say that with any trauma therapy, the more you can resource yourself and the more grounding/coping skills you have the better. Your T should be working to keep things safe with the EMDR, but it doesn't have to be limited to that. If you find out what things help you and practise them, it's more likely that you'll be able to do them when you need to the most. Maybe you could put together an "emergency kit" which includes a list of things you can do, a safe place visualisation (and other visualisations) written down for you to read, an image or symbol of your safe place, plus any bits and pieces you'll need (like, in my case, peppermint oil to smell).

Also, this might sound a bit odd, but you have to DO the grounding, however much you don't want to or feel it isn't working. I used to try to visualise when I was so overwrought I was jumping out of my chair every minute or two to check the door was shut, and it had to be the most rubbish visualisation ever, but I just kept doing it and it did have an effect in the end. i think the commitment to it sends a message internally as much as doing it does.

 

[lighteningdarkness]

Thanks for the replies and advice, greatly appreciated.

My T does say that I am in control, do I want to continue etc but what she is saying doesn't match her body language. I did email her and she replied saying agreeing that she did feel I was disasociated in the session and would have stopped the T if I hadn't had been able to ground myself again. This is positive. She also agreed to work on being safe at the end of the session. But her email sounded wrong, like she was annoyed at me for questioning stuff. I guess that's one of the problem with any non verbal communication, the risk of misinterpreting, she could have just written it in a rush.

I was thinking of making the session non EMDR. But we left the last session incomplete, we didn't get to a point where I could link a positive thought. We have a longer session this week and I was thinking that we could cover the points we need to discuss and then use the rest of the session to finish up what we started last week, if I'm happy to.

Thanks Radlak for the practical suggestion of physically doing something. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with not being able to move out of the trauma too. Can I ask how long you had been working with your T before starting and how long you had spent discussing EMDR and safe spaces?

It's interesting what you say about grounding, Hashi - the having to do it. It's far easier to sit and experience it, and (when it's just the spacy numbness and not the intruding trauma recollection) kind of a nice place sometimes. Like I've opted out of life for a while. I've not been very good at working on my own tools, I've just been sitting around hating myself. I feel a little bit of positivity today so will put some work in. I think you're right that I need something physical to touch or smell.

I also think you're right about the reasons for continuing. One thing that we've clearly identified is that I always put other people first, making sure they're ok and it's entirely likely that I'll extend this into therapy. Lots to think about.

 

[BronteSista]

((Light&Darkness))

I appreciate you posting the information about your EMDR sessions...I've been trying to find out more about people's reactions to it, and whether it exacerbates the PTSD for a while or if you experience immediate relief.

I'll be starting it next week, and I'm really nervous. My therapist set aside our first three sessions to just concentrate on techniques to help me learn how to self-soothe and cope during times of anxiety or depression. It's been difficult to set aside time to do that every day, but he said this will help to lessen the pain of any traumatic feelings that come up during and after the EMDR sessions.

His analogy about EMDR is that when our brain processes memories, especially traumatic ones, instead of being spread out into "multiple filing cabinets" in the brain like most other memories are, the trauma has been stored into one or two filing cabinets, overburdening that part of the brain and imprinting a stronger memory of the emotions attached to the trauma.

He also used the analogy that PTSD is like a jellyfish in your brain: The largest traumatic memory filters down into the tendrils of smaller traumatic events or feelings that are all connected to the part of your brain holding on to the main trauma, so he said we need to do little bits at a time, moving up the legs of the "jellyfish", and as we do that it will help to dissolve the main trauma and refile the emotions into a more spread out format in the brain. Weird analogies haha, but it helps me understand what our plan is for these next few sessions.

I just hope that this will help with the dissociated feeling and the numbness that has had such a negative effect on me, along with other painful symptoms that have resulted from the PTSD. If you feel like your therapist isn't listening to your concerns or is brushing them off, maybe try a new therapist...? Reprocessing the memories is part of therapy, and it will be painful at the time, but if it hasn't gotten better, or you continually feel worse, than it might be a good idea to look into someone else who you truly feel comfortable with. I wish you luck and peace of mind :)

 

[lighteningdarkness]

Just thought I'd update this to say that I had my second session and it was far more positive. I didn't get 'lost' in the remembering and my T worked really hard at grounding me and the safety during and at the end of the session.

It was still really difficult and I have had some knock on from the session. I'm very tired and have had a nap which is unusual. It's weird, like the memory is fully there but it doesn't hurt to think about like it did. I have had a nightmare and some flashbacks today more than normal, but I think I have the grounding more in place so it hasn't got out of hand.

Bronte, thanks for your post. I note that you're going to start EMDR, feel free to ask any questions if you think it will make you less nervous.

 

[healptsd]

I am glad the second session went better. I guess in the end only we can gauge what feels right in our therapy. It's hard when trust is an issue - cause sometimes none of it feels right when we start pulling back layers. Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope things will continue to unfold in ways that feel helpful and supportive for you. Love and Light.

 

[LizardViolet]

Thank you for this discussion. I am very curious about EMDR and after seeing Michael Burns' film I am hopeful that my boyfriend (ptsd from childhood abuse plus combat experiences) might try it at some point. Lightanddarkness, what you report from your second session, that the memory is still there but that it doesn't hurt like it did, is what I understand to be the result of effective EMDR.