EMDR for CPTSD: when the therapist triggers you
I’d just like some other CPTSD brains to give me their take on this.
Yesterday, I had my first EMDR appointment with the NHS, having waited six months. I’m a primary teacher but was signed off back in March as I was being triggered by colleagues every day with no recovery time inbetween. This resulted in daily panic attacks, a resting heart rate of 181bpm, blurred vision etc.
I resigned in May and have spent months interviewing for jobs outside of teaching with no luck so far. I also find the interview process very triggering and every rejection is another knock to my self esteem, reinforcing the core belief “I’m not good enough and I’m doing life wrong.”
Yesterday, after 40 mins of discussing with my therapist my core beliefs of “I have to do the right thing” and “I’m not good enough”, I mentioned that I’ve had three failed interviews and that it had been a horrendous time period for me. I live alone and have a mortgage to pay so I then informed her that my plan for the rest of this year is to tutor. (I’ve worked hard at building this and currently have 10 clients lined up for September).
She then proceeded to tell me that this “wasn’t a proper job”. She said tutoring is just a side hustle and something you do to earn extra pocket money for holidays; it’s not THE job. In this same spiel, she said that I don’t want to end up in deprivation because it makes EMDR much harder and set my goal to “get back into teaching”. This whole conversation happened right at the end. So I left completely blindsided and very upset. As soon as I got home, I had a massive panic attack - of which I haven’t had since I was last at work in March.
She massively triggered everything I had spent the 40 mins telling her about: I’m not good enough, I’m a failure, I’m stupid, I’m doing life wrong, I’m lazy, I’m doing the wrong thing.
I have been trying my damn hardest to get “a proper job” and tutoring is my only option atm so I just feel deflated and angry. I also now don’t feel safe to do the EMDR with her. I’m just wondering if I’m over reacting or if this was a dumb thing for her to say.