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Originally Posted by cometcatcher
I'm glad you asked this question, and I'm glad you've gotten the responses you have, but I'm surprised there aren't more EMDRers here. I'm not one, myself, but I came to look at this thread because I've been thinking about the possibility of EMDR, too. I'm both curious and frightened.
What are the memories like that come out? Does it even bring out memories, exactly? Are they flashbacks? Will we re-experience the the trauma? Can it happen on a sensory level, too?
I've had a flashback before. It was definitely one of the most horrifying experiences of my life, but afterwards I felt... so free. So whole. So released and complete, I would do it again if I could. Walls of numbness rose again in a matter of time, and that feeling of wholeness melted away.
Preceding the flashback, I had no idea what was coming, but the whole day I felt odd; sick, loopy, frightened for no apparent reason. It was a unique, unpleasant cocktail of emotional and and physical sensation, like a prodrome. And now that I've felt it, it's unmistakable for anything else.
And now, years later, I'm feeling it again, the "prodrome." There's something in there that wants to come out. But it just won't. It's stuck or something. It's hovering behind my head, just out of sight. I've felt so numb and dead inside for so long, and I really believe that once the memories come out I can start to be whole again.
I wonder if EMDR could help that process along? I don't know what the memory is going to be (though I might know what "category" it falls under), so I wouldn't know what to focus on while the session is going. But you said your T wants you to use EMDR for more of a generalized recovery? I wonder how that will work if you don't have a specific trauma-related image to focus on? Would you mind sharing how exactly your T says the process will go in a case in which there isn't something particular on which to be focused?
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I think EMDR is perfect for helping get out of a stuck place-that is why I am trying it! I have been meeting with my EMDR-T for a long time without even doing any EMDR. It was a lot of family genogram stuff, regular talk therapy, and me getting used to all the ideas and language that is used in EMDR that isn't in traditional talk therapy. I'm a slow adapter
I have done the actual tapper thingys once-and it was just to think of "protective, wise, nurturing" figures (real or imaginary) to put in place in my brain to help when we do the hard stuff. I felt no different, and I struggled with even that exercise.
My T seems to be ok with all of it, and we switched tactics. I don't remember a ton of my childhood, nor was I ever abused.There are memories that I would say are unpleasant, but they have no emotional connection now. I am actually going to do EMDR next time on all of last year at work. It was a very long, difficult and traumatizing year. She said that it is a safer topic because it isn't about my childhood, and the emotions are easily accessible since it was so recent. She did say that it could link to memories of the past.
THe way my T has explained how EMDR works (as much as current knowledge exists) is that when traumatizing things happen as a kid, and don't get resolved--those memories stay stuck in your brain-way back in the brain, where regular talk therapy doesn't access. The way a "normal" memory works is that it goes through your amyglada (?), and then maybe the hippocampus (i am trying to remember this off the top of my head!), and then the chemicals get stored in regions of the brain where memories are stored: either long term or short term. With traumatic memories, the chemicals are either produced in large quantities (you had a hyperarousal reaction-much anxiety, hypervigilant), and that excess gets siphoned off to the "old brain." If you shut down during the incident, there weren't enough chemicals and it got stuck in some part (amyglada or hippocampus), and once again is not in the "correct" part where memories are stored.
WHEW. I didn't think I would remember all that! (No pun intended)
Quote:
Originally Posted by struggling2
i one thing i notice is i am EXTREMELY tired afterwards. i always crash hard for a few hours after. hope that gives you a little perspective on how its worked for me so far.
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I am SO afraid of that!! I go in the middle of my work day--so I need to go back to a classroom of 2 year olds the rest of the day
