Emdr With No Childhood Memory

[Laumarric]

Hi,

I am brand new to this site and I am looking for support/advice. I am currently seeing a counselor to try and help resolve my childhood. My mother was an alcoholic and abusive. I was also sexually abused by 2 different half brothers. We recently started discussing this during my appointments.

My counselor gave me a brochure on EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and I'm thinking she wants to try it with me. Here is my main concern, I can't really remember much of my childhood. I have bits and pieces of a few bad memories but for the most part it's all gone.

Will EMDR bring these memories back? Or do I have to know an exact memory? I'm just not sure it will work for me since I have blocked all these memories out of my head. I'm just looking to get opinions. I want to remember my childhood as hard as it was so I can overcome it. I just don't know how to.

Thanks!

 

[gtpgurl]

Hello!

 

[Notsowild]

Hello! Welcome to the forum.

 

[franciemarnie]

Hello to you!

 

[Deleted member 25907]

hi

 

[Trice]

Hi.. Welcome to the forum.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

Why hello there :-)

 

[Changing4Best]

Since you have another person asking you the questions in EMDR, instead of you just trying to remember, your therapist and you together should have success in helping you to remember. Once a therapist uncovered what I had repressed, it all came flashing back to me, even when I was not in with my therapist sometimes. Go for the EMDR, you have nothing to lose, only gain. It is a bit of rough going sometimes, some folks say, but the long term benefits far outweigh any suffering you may go through doing it.

 

[Nicolette]

@Laumarric - as your questions are about EMDR I have moved your post to the Therapy section.

 

[Hashi]

Go for the EMDR, you have nothing to lose, only gain.

I'm really sorry, but I can't agree with this. You could be risking overwhelm and retraumatisation. If you're going to try EMDR please make that decision based on having fully researched it, discussed it with your therapist, done lots of preparatory work with your therapist on safety and containment, and feel that it's the right thing for you to try.

 

[I am .....]

Hi Laumarric :) I'm new to this forum also. I think you have the right attitude, wanting to overcome your past. Without going into tmi I was abused as a very young child and placed in foster care.

I've spent most of my life with little to no memory of my childhood. Only 'knowing' what I'd been informed about and having few memories. I started EMDR at the start of the year after I developed PTSD as a result of a random assault in broad daylight last year. I read a lot about the process and spoke to the appropriate people so I was fully informed but nothing could prepared me for what I was about to go through.

I can only tell you what it was like for me as everyone's story and treatment is different. It was really difficult for me to except and trust the things I was seeing and feeling to be real. I cried a lot during the first few sessions. It literally is like a roller coaster ride because you never know what to expect. It is still early days for me but it is already well worth the hard work. I'm starting to see light at the end of my tunnel.

I could go on about this for days so I will end here by saying make sure you feel comfortable with your T and good luck! One day at a time and one foot in front of the other.

 

[open eyes]

I had EMDR therapy done this past summer, focused around traumas starting in my childhood to a few years ago.

It did help clarify & retrieve memories for me. I don't mean to go on a tangent about myself, but I was sexually abused by my neighbors as a child. Although I remembered the events, I didn't remember the emotions I felt. During the EMDR therapy the old emotions which still had been repressed came back. I experienced them, & then they were done.

So based on my experience, I would say that EMDR can help clarify repressed memories, but I'm not sure if anything but time can really 'bring them back'.