Emdr Today

[Snowflake]

Rough EMDR today. I can't function. Part of me feels like I failed my therapist, me and my inner child, another part feels frozen, part of me is ashamed and embarrassed and another wants to kill myself. Why is this so hard?

 

[Deleted member 541]

As with any therapy dealing with PTSD, it always gets worse before it gets better. The biggest thing that you can do for yourself is grounding yourself, good and healthy coping skills and being kind to yourself. It's important post therapy!!!!,

 

[BlueOrange]

I find EMDR really tough. All the parts of me connect up and I lose the ability to make them shut up, I have to listen to them instead.

EMDR makes it impossible to avoid the stuff that you've been hiding from yourself, or running away from. It turns out that I (and you) had a good reason to avoid that stuff, which is that it's really difficult to confront it!

But not impossible anymore. We're both older and wiser than we were, and we have more coping methods. We have therapists, and social supports that we didn't used to have.

Hang in there. Once you're confident in being able to endure what you're facing now, everything else gets easier.

 

[Missycat]

I second @She Cat comments. It is essential you have some grounding techniques or techniques that can calm and sooth you , listen to your favourite music, go for a walk, call a friend etc. Have you tried mindfulness ? There are free apps you can down load to your computer or mobile.
I have been doing emdr with my T and have felt the same way, we have taken a break from emdr processing the traumas as i was dissociating so much (so couldnt actually do it) or i would dissociate afterwards and them have some really low bad days. We are currently working on me being able to be present and look after myself inc self soothing, self compassion. lt can worse before it gets better - talk to your T about how you feel and what strategies you can put in place to get through this.

 

[user27357]

I too suffer from EMDR side effects, but it also has EFFECTS, unlike so many other BS therapies I tried and misdiagnonis I chased. EMDR is hard, but damn, so is anything else worth doing with the idea of making something better than it was before.

Wish it was all easy, but then I wouldn't be here and neither would you. Off doing something fun and not remembering that little battle with PTSD we went through.

Keep up the good (hard) work