Good Days Turn Bad, Bad Days Stay Bad, Do You Ever Get A Bad Day To Turn Good?

[99Phoenix99]

I haven't done EMDR yet... my therapist has asked me if I'd like to try but I'm not so sure. I haven't heard many good things about it thus far.

Anyhow, after each session of therapy I have (just talk therapy) I'm never totally grounded. I'm good enough to get back in my car and drive home or get to some place but the memories that have been let loose run rampant for me as well.

Breathing exercises, regular exercise, diverting my attention, and everything else generally doesn't help me either. Once it's out, it's out.

The only solace I've managed to find is by writing it out on this site. Just to put it into words. If I don't write it out then I just run through every detail over and over again like a broken record for hours on end into the night depriving myself of sleep.

Writing out the blow by blow hurts but somehow it helps me organize and process the memory better then just thinking on it. And getting input from others helps as well. Sometimes I give all the nitty gritty and others I omit but... either way just getting it out helps me a great deal. Just being on this site... I think I get more help here than I do at therapy to be honest. 30 min a day here grounds me better than one appointment a week.

 

[ms spock]

I haven't done EMDR yet... my therapist has asked me if I'd like to try but I'm not so sure. I haven't heard many good things about it thus far.

There does seem to be a lot of problems with it which is concerning. I, unfortunately tried
"alternative therapies" and wasted years of my life.

 

[cherryblossom]

I had a bad experience with EMDR, but that doesn't mean it's a bad type of therapy. It is a recognised and established therapy for PTSD, and can be extremely effective when combined with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

I know there are many people here who have benefited. Perhaps it would be worth discussing it further with your therapist, and don't be afraid to ask about their own qualifications, experience and success/ failure with EMDR.

(Edited to add,) you might want to read the following and some of the links within.
[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/eye-movement-desensitization-and-reprocessing/[/DLMURL]

 

[just me here]

After twenty plus years of talk therapy and multi multi prescriptions that did nothing for me (positive anyway, lots of negative side effects) my diagnosis of PTSD and the EMDR that followed was at first magical and amazing. Finally, I had something (besides the biofeedback) that seemed real and repeatable. Too bad my first therapist was brand new and I was her first "bad" case. A lot happened fast, and I was soon suicidal and withdrawing from everything and everybody, a real mess.

I am with a new therapist and we have spent probably 25 times the amount of time spent on the same events and memories as the first therapist. I left that therapist feeling like my survival skills no longer worked and my coping mechanism was useless in the face of the re established memories. My new therapist is tediously thorough, she keeps everything under control and on track and everything is handled in small bites.

But I still am troubled by these endless bad days and descending moods that seem to come to me everyday and right now I honestly can't see how it will ever change. There is always another lousy memory and I was probably better off with just doing my best to stay busy and ignore them all.

Bringing stuff to the surface is definitely a bad thing for me.