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Emdr: One Giant Leap For Jack-kind.

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jackrabbit

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Been off-line a lot lately. A number of widely disparate, but all shitty, reasons why.

But I'm back now. And I had a major--as in, Huge--breakthrough about two-months back, and I want to share it.

I'd tried EMDR before, with little-to-no effect. But my MD demanded that I try it again and sent me to the same gal she'd used for trauma. I was reluctant--drug my feet the whole way, conveniently lost the therapist's number a bunch of times, etc. Relatively recently, I finally broke down and went.

Long story short, it has worked wonders.

My PTSD was mostly incident-based guilt; I was torn-up about what I'd done. I believed, whole-heartedly, that I was a monster. My actions repeated like a horrific syndicated re-run in my head. I thought I was damned for having separated so many mothers from their sons and wives from their husbands.

I don't feel that way anymore.
I don't think that way anymore.
It's amazing.

I am happy to go into the why's and what-for's if anyone's interested. I'm also happy to provide my gal's name if you're in the greater Seattle area and want to try her out.

But the point of this is to say that I've changed my stance on EMDR. It worked for me--I just had to find the right therapist.

Which is not to say I'm cured; I still have a ton of shit to work through. But the most heinous part of my PTSD--the part that made me trigger and convinced me I was little more than an animal at heart--has been silent for more than eight-weeks.

Eight Weeks!

If you're PTSD is incident-based, give it (another) shot.
 
What a great result.

I'm looking into alternative therapies considering the treatment waitinglist is insanely long here.
Maybe have another talk with the GP again and see if there are possibilities.

Good on you for having more rest now.
 


Well done Br'er Rabbit, good to see you back and positive.

EMDR is a really hard therapy to handle, congrats. Only because you have to get up close and personal with your therapist. Well that is how my therapist did it. So the trust level has to be up there.
 
Thanks, gang.

So, the good news is that the treatment has continued to "hold". I can still--and have--revisited some of the things that used to be sources of hate for me, and have had a number of potential trigger-incidents, and have stayed good through them both.

Specifically, for me, that means I can think about some of the things that used to activate me--especially my close-combat kills--and not freak the f*ck out. I can see the faces of dying men, feel their bodies beneath my knife or my fingers, smell their blood, taste their stink, and watch them die, and Not Think of Myself as a Monster. Not hate myself for it. In fact, I'm actually okay with them. It also means crowds, certain noises, etc., that used to set me on-edge are much, much better. Not fine, but better.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that--as should come as a shock to no-one--there's a ton of shit buried beneath my PTSD that was not, it turns out, incident-related PTSD. Self-hate on a broad scale, depression, fear...things that I always wrote-off as PTSD are not, in fact, directly related. Which means sorting out the whys and what-fors is proving to be a long, difficult, and generally ass-sucking process.

But, hey, at least I don't see the pleading faces of dying men when I close my eyes in the shower anymore.
Which is not a small victory.
 
Good news Jack!

"But, hey, at least I don't see the pleading faces of dying men when I close my eyes in the shower anymore.
Which is not a small victory."


It's about all those NOT so small victories - they do add up. Keep plugging away brother.

Ba
 
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