T1 and T2 EMDR therapy is this normal?

Is this normal?.


So my first therapist for EMDR, we will name them T1 and my current therapist T2.


I was struggling to go to work due to panic attacks with flashbacks and excessive crying until 1am.

This was due to a bad experience at work that I worked with my mum and my mum basically told me to quit work at work! as I was crying. She told me "I dare you to go to the manager and resign from your position". I did that.

So after that this was 2015, I haven't been able to work.

History.

I went to therapy for 4 years. 2 years of a student therapist of nightmares! made my symptoms worse. I did DBT therapy and had a huge improvement and transformation. I was discharged after my 4th year. Though my psychologist still recommended me to see a therapist. ( I was discharged because I was in the public mental health system. In my country the government funds therapy, so the therapist work there have HUGE waiting list of clients that need to get into therapy. Hence why the discharged)

I went to find another psychologist based in DBT. That's where I learnt EMDR after my 2 bad reactions to 2 different jobs.

This was after 4 years of T1 that suggested EMDR.

I'm doing EMDR now with T2 and it began to make me wonder...did my T1 therapist do it wrong with EMDR therapy or is T2 doing it wrong and being an unproductive therapist.


T1 EMDR therapy.


They asked me to bring up memories of work and school.

Did the normal memory patrol call and level of disturbance.

At first we did fellow fingers but I had trouble with staying with one memory. I had tons of past memories that keep coming up. T1 asked me to put them into a container visually.

During our sessions. T1 told me not to tell them my unwelcome memories.

I became tired and exhausted during the session.

Afterwards I was utterly smashed with exhaustion.

I did notice I became forgetful, for example accidently leaving my keys in the outside car door at a car park. Luckily I came back no one took with the car. I struggle to keep up with house chores.

I had a few nightmares and noticed that if I thought of my bullies in the past from school, I vidily had a picture in my mind of T1 moving her fingers left to right and my eyes started to doing it, when I was drifting off to sleep.


My T1 asked me to fill out a paper chart and take note of any memories popping up. Which did happen..Walking my dog and the sound of a cricket singing among the grass, would trigger unwelcome memories.


I would email my T1 my paper chart.

I did develop over the 4 years a heavy dependency on my T1 of emails. I didn't notice at the time I became heavily dependent on my T1 emails that I couldn't function.

Not until! I met T2.


Eventually T1 went into maternity leave.

I found another psychologist T2.


So far I’ve been seeing them for 5 months. It is only now! We have started EMDR therapy.

My T2 isn’t the greatest at responding to emails. Even if it's about payments. They won’t reply over a week or just before my therapy session with them or just after. Their reason is because they have to look after their 1 year old baby and a toddler.I did send long emails and I didn’t realize how long they were!
Since T1 never told me or said anything. One day I sent T2 a copy of T1 email I sent about what happened last Christmas with my mother in law and how I literally get panic attacks because I'm scared of her. T2 was bothered by the email. T2 printed out my email and placed it on the table and turned each page counting 1 , 2 ,3 ,4 ,5 ,6! This is 6 pages! I don’t need to know minor details about your father in law sitting on the right side of the table. I felt ashamed and as if I was in trouble. T2 did realize the way they came across wasn’t effective and said “This came out wrong, you haven’t done anything wrong”. Yet my trust and feeling anxious to see them increased. I said how my fiance can come to therapy and explain it. So T2 agreed to this and my finance had to take time off work! And come into session because my therapist didn’t want to read my email.

During Christmas holidays I had bad panic attacks, nothing oddly happened with the mother in law! . Maybe because my fiance's sibling has a new patner and it changes the dynamic in the family in gatherings. Yet each morning I had panic attacks, hot flashes, constant runny tummies and the shakes. I had no support and after 2 weeks! I figured I would go and use DBT skills and found a nightmare section which helped me. I told my T2 about this and they said I coped well. I didn’t feel like I did since I had panic attacks and haven’t had panic attacks since 2016. So…..I felt dismissed. I did bring up the situation that happened with the email and the printed 6 pages, overall it went well and they told me they could’ve approached it better and realized I didn’t know it was 6 pages. Because emails aren’t like a Word document and show you how many pages.


Finally we started EMDR, my first session. We did some work previously to work on my three nurturing figures and she used EMDR tapping to install it so it's easy for me to access when needed.

Anyways

They told me before we started EMDR session that I was stalling EMDR therapy, however I’ve been having a lot of weekly worries, social anxiety , friendships and family issues. I felt blamed, that it was my fault.

T2 wanted to focus on my mother as they see is the KEY issue not work memories.

So they did the normal memory we are going to look at the disturbance level etc.

We are focusing on my childhood memories with my mother. They asked in the waiting room to do mindfulness for my 3 nurture figures and my safe place which i did.

They got me to sit in a room facing some pictures on the wall and the sofa as for something to focus on if need be. They sat close to me face to face. We tried to do fingers left to right but it wasn’t doing it for me. So T2 tapped both sides of my knees when processing the memories. They wrote down each thing I said and what happened after each process. The unwanted memories I had they suggested pretending to put tinted sunglasses on and pick a healing colour and do that to process the memory we are targeting on which helped.


It took 2 hours by the way. Not sure if that was normal.


Afterwards I told them I didn’t feel torrid or exhausted and they told me I shouldn’t be experiencing any unwelcome memories afterwards. I thought this was interesting because my experience with T1 was opposite of that.


So far I have had one nightmare and one random memory of my mother.


But I’ve been able to function and do house chores and not forget to leave my car key in the car door.


They didn’t want me to put a chart down like previously with T1 and record my memories

Or email them. They told me skills I can use when I'm distressed.

Such as Container Exercise

Nurturing Figures

Light Stream

Journal

Sensory Stuff

Mindfulness App.


Is this normal what I experience with T1 and T2 in EMDR therapy?

What are your thoughts?

Are there any alarming bells I need to be aware of?


Thank you for reading my message. It's much appreciate taking your time to read it.

and yes this may be a long post. If you have a issue with that it be much appreciate if you could not comment how long it is. Because it's not helping me to answer my question about is it normal for EMDR therapy. Thanks.