Emdr...

[Shady_99']

Well I started EMDR yesterday and it was a little intense. Remembering all the abuse from my mom and how scared I was alone in the hospital after brain surgeries. How she beat me with plastic hangers and broke them on me. And how nobody stopped her...

It was hard but I'm glad I got it out. My T wants me to start a journal but I'm not sure if I can. When I was a child and would keep a journal/diary my mom would always go through it and read everything then criticize me. So I started to keep all my feeling deep inside where nobody can criticize me for what I'm feeling. I don't know what to do...


Help please any suggestions....

 

[Friday]

When I found it impossible to write, a vey brilliant person clued me in about drawing, instead. Even if it's stick figures that one labels what is happening in the scene. Can be a trauma diary, or modern diary.

Another line of thought... I got irritated with a teacher at one point and so started writing all my papers backwards. First in mirror writing, then -because she was holding them up to the mirror!- backwards forwards, so everything was still unreadable in a mirror.

What would be one better than that, however, if you're really concerned about anyone else reading or understanding what you're writing, is shorthand. Shorthand used to be commonly understood, but I'd be surprised if more than a few thousand people -out of billions- can read classic shorthand, now. Even so, most stenographers back when would develop their own personal variants of it. That's what I use myself; a personal form of shorthand... for my school lecture notes.

 

[Ronin]

What about making stuff? You can use scraps of every material around for it, have something to do with your hands even in case you really can't focus on what you're doing and just want the feeling out, and it can give you lil things people won't get the significance of but you do.

If that's helping any to ease the 'will be found out' fears.

Also how are you with short notes? A word summing a complex event, differences in hand writing & styling the writing being what's more telling than what's being written, things like that?

 

[oasis2003]

I also started another bout of emdr on Thursday with a new therapist. It is extremely intense and also I have been intensely reprocessing ever since! Exhausting !! I hope it is worth it. Have any of you had emdr what outcomes have you had. I am just scared that bringing my angry side out will make me an angry person or make me a different person.

 

[Joseph Sean]

Hi All,

I have C-PTSD and recently began EMDR. After several sessions of preparing we have done two rounds. I will say this treatment takes courage and I would sincerely hope it works for as many people as possible. I cried in my first session more than I ever have in any therapy session. And the second session brought back memories I had repressed for years. My biggest issues are rage and dissociation especially in public, mainly from child abuse and the death of my father.

To those with doubts about the treatment, I hope it has the same effect that I have had thus far. The presence of my repressed memories and newfound understanding is allowing me to not react sideways with rage and the other common traits we all share. I am glad I do not feel "cured" or euphoric. This treatment has thus far given me a feeling of clarity, the ability to grieve, be sad and say "this too shall pass". While I am still sad quite often, the sadness feels comparable to just normal people rather than the war zone of PTSD we all unfortunately experience(d).

 

[Crow]

collages. you know cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them down. sounds silly but got me through rough days and actually offers clarity to the emdr confusion.

 

[oasis2003]

I think EMDR is brill when you are stabilised and ready to face your trauma, after successful stabilisation phase, or if you just have to process a small amount. If you have a lot to process and to un repress then I think you have to err on the side of caution. This is just my opinion, however I have tried two lots of EMDR with different therapists it was toooo much for me, however everyone is an individual.