Emdr for sexual abuse

[Leighlee87]

Okay, I've gone through EMDR to process through other traumatic past events, but I just recently admitted to being sexually abused. My therapist wants to go through another round of EMDR, and I'm terrified for a variety of reasons. One being, how little detail can I get away with saying. Because other than repeating "I've been raped" and "I've been molested" I really don't think I can get any other words out of my mouth.

I know at times during my last emdr session she allowed me not to say a thing a couple times. But I know that if I were to keep it up through an entire session, I wouldn't be able to stay present at all.

Just looking for advice on how much I need to give her and how little I can get away with.

Ps. I really miss the edit button.

 

[mrsmegan]

I am doing this now.

My therapist really encouraged me to get the words out, to get out the details - his reasoning was that in me saying it, it can lessen the enormous amount of shame around it. It was so, so hard - but I did find that it eased a burden for me.

We have continued to tip-toe around EMDR with it, it has been important for me to get some of this stuff out, to release some of the scary stuff, so that when we do really go into it, I will hopefully be able to stay more present.

Not sure if that makes sense at all.

 

[Kieran]

I agree with @mrsmegan. Saying it out loud is definitely hard, but beneficial.

From my experience, when I did EMDR, my therapist never made me say anything out loud. We discussed what I went through once, during our consultation session -- and the rest, I allowed my therapist to tell my EMDR therapist. I stayed quiet, went into EMDR and did it. It helped and I barely said a word. I journaled about my session at home, came in next week, showed her the entry. That was that.

 

[zoie33]

You can work it out with your therapist as to not having to say specifics. usually they just want to know that you're progressing onto new memories instead of just getting stuck so mine doesn't require me to get into any big details but he wants to know that new memories are coming up. also keep in mind you're going to remember a lot of other stuff usually. I kind of freaked out when I start the EMDR on sexual abuse and I skipped to other memories so it's not like you'll be sitting there silent through the whole thing. Good luck to you I know it is hard because EMDR brings up so many more other hidden memories

 

[Leighlee87]

Yeah, that's true. I remember skipping around a lot when we were doing emdr for the rest of the abuse.

The idea of saying the details is incredibly scary. It came up twice in previous emdr sessions, but the moment I tried to get the words out, I went into a flashback instead.

I can see the benefit to saying it out loud because there is a part of me that is terrified she doesn't believe me. Like, I need someone to know exactly what happened, know just how bad it was, and just say "Yes, that was rape". I guess I need to feel validated simply, because I wasn't listened to or believed before. But for the life of me, I don't know how to find that bravery. And yeah, the shame is huge.

 

[zoie33]

I have never found the courage to say in words the worst part of my childhood abuse even when I told the worst part from college I kind of skirted around the actual words for what happened. I did find the courage to put the worst of it in my journal once and I just had him read it so now I don't have to go into detail during EMDR. As he was reading he was empathizing invalidating how horrible it was that made me feel better.

and validating...