Repressed Memories And EMDR

[HsDghtr93]

First post, found this forum this weekend and have read a bit. Glad to have found ya'll. Here is my question.....

I have been doing EMDR with my therapist for a bit now. Something disturbing happened the last time and I am not sure what to think about it.

A bit of background... I grew up in a home with a functional alcoholic, and while it had good, loving times, it was also a place of emotional abuse. There was some sexual abuse by the strictest definition, but "not bad"-- I was never touched as far as I know, but had access to porn and the neighbor kids took me to the field to look, but as far as I remember never touched. I do not believe my dad ever touched me, though I did think he devalued women.

So back to the EMDR, in the memory we were working on, my dad was extremely upset with me and took a picture of me crying "to show everyone what a baby I was". During the visual of EMDR, I saw me kiss my dad. I got rid of the picture immediately and went a different direction. I told the therapist about it and she said it could be a repressed memory or it could be a representation of the atmosphere I grew up in- which was a bit sexualized- though not an actual memory.

I really do not think it is a memory as everything in me says no and I do not remember anything like that. But I am freaking out a little bit.

Has anyone else had anything like this happen? Any help?

 

[Mina]

Hi, HsDghtr93 - welcome to the forum :smile:

I don't know if this will help or not, but my sister had a similar experience...hers was the same image as yours but in dreams, not EMDR. As for being a repressed memory, neither of us was sexually abused. That we know. So we talked about it for some time, as she was extremely disturbed by it. We settled on what your therapist suggested, that it was a representation of the environment in which we were raised...which in our circumstance, was extremely repressive in many ways, including sexually.

 

[HsDghtr93]

Thanks for your reply and the welcome, Mina. Had your sister done EMDR previous to her dream? It did not sound like it, just making sure.

I do not think mine was a memory, but it is still very disturbing.

 

[Mina]

No, she hadn't done EMDR prior to her disturbing dreams.

I am, and my dreams have been so odd lately. And dreams that shouldn't be distressing...I awaken with my heart racing, breathing heavily, wide awake. The nightmares, I can understand that, but the benign dreams...I don't get it.

I'm sorry it's disturbed you so deeply, but think it's probably good that you're talking about it instead of holding that in. Well done. :smile:

 

[void]

:hello:Welcome! I have many dreams of nasty things like being sodomized that I have no actual memories of. I don't know what to make of them.:crazy: These dreams are so real and yet 0 actual memory. ??????????? I wish I could offer some advice but I have none.

 

[Suze24]

You could be having memories from a past life ... Read the works of Brian Weiss and his regression therapy....we've all had stuff from past lives affect our current life.