Where did emdr link you?

[Deleted member 37474]

Had my first emdr session last week. My home work was to pat myself on the back, and to ride through any repeat flashes that come to me. Not to stress or analyze, just let them pass through. And I mostly am able to do this.

We started with an "upsetting" suds 5 experience that happened in high school, a few years before the rape. I had to stop it twice when it started to pull me into my dorm room. I didn't stop it when it pulled me into junior year or to present day where I am teaching a private student that reminds me of HS me. I am fascinated how the theme and process links things together like a web.

The one part of my week that has been the worst is 2 days after emdr I was somehow triggered and ended up stuck in a flashback in the part that I had linked to and stopped during the sets. A friend from here coached me back into the original set so that I could come out. It was really strange. I literally felt stuck in both the present and past at the same time. I was looking at my cell phone and describing it to her and at the same time seeing the landline from my college dorm room. But the way she pulled me out was linking me back to the original scene. It worked. How did she know how to do that? She hasn't even done emdr.

Questions:
1. How do you contain your scene and not link to too many places?
2. Has your emdr session linked you to something completely unexpected?

 

[zoie33]

I'm no expert I've been doing EMDR for about 6 months now but it is my understanding that you want EMDR to link you to all different kinds of things that's the purpose to link the bad memories to things that you can relate to and tolerate I guess that's called processing. It is also been my experience that the couple days after an EMDR session all kinds of new crap will come up a lot of these remembers are disturbing but I have never done EMDR on a small trauma yet all of my sessions have been on my worst memories. EMDR candytuft that's why you need to really be able to use the grounding exercises and safe place exercises that are taught prior to starting even with that flashbacks and memories that pop up can be very disturbing I usually try to write them down and we discuss at my next session writing them down for me helps me let go I pretend like I'm putting it in a locked box and it stays there until my next session when we can discuss. Good luck to you EMDR can be very powerful and helpful but it's also very hard work.