u/UxPGH2006

My mother was never shy about telling me that she wanted me so badly bc she needed someone to love her unconditionally. She got pregnant on purpose when she was 22. So I was groomed from the beginning of my life to believe my self worth and being worthy of love is based on what I can give to or provide others. How can you ever heal a wound that goes back to the womb? The thread never ends. I’m spinning out today over this. I realize my entire life has been built around this. The thing is it’s not that I’m a people pleaser, but I do often feel responsible for others comfort, happiness, and wellbeing. I feel emotions deeply and sometimes have a hard time recovering when I’m around someone who is exceptionally sad. I always thought I was just a HSP, but now I’m not sure that’s even real.

I feel like this is causing me to spin out today. It’s like my mind (maybe my ego? Maybe the part that warned me to not follow this thread?) cannot make sense of any of it. Please tell me you’ve experienced this and have come out the other side of it. How did you reconcile it? I really need encouragement today 🙏🏾

I started doing EMDR a few months ago. I have PTSD and cPTSD. We focused on the single event trauma for the first two sessions. Those were about 3-4 weeks apart, with a few holotropic breath work sessions surrounding the EMDR. It has been an amazing success. So what’s the issue now?

I have also been doing IFS work for 2 years (mostly on my own but occasionally in therapy). My parts went silent after I asked for a break. Great. That’s what I needed for a hot second. Well, at my session last night we started to dive into the complex trauma part of my past. I was barely able to follow the thread before I started shaking and almost threw up. So we tried one more time and it’s like my mind just went blank. This has never been an issue for me. I have a very rich inner world and dissociation/going internal is actually a problem for me in most instances. I was finally able to have a sessions with my part afterwards, but the shutdown was so strong and so fierce it surprised me.

Have you experienced that during EMDR for cPTSD? What was it like for you? Do you have any tips, tricks, advice for me as I travel down this part of the path?