Most of the posts in here talk about more panic with sessions or the hangover for days after. I know it's hard work but does anyone have positive experiences?
I feel lighter and happier and excited to see what’s next. It’s taken almost a year to get here, but I’ve officially reprocessed the big trauma that has felt so heavy on me for so many years. The perspective shift is truly shocking. It feels like a big win today and I just had to share.
I hope everyone else gets to experience this feeling if they haven’t already.
Hi all,
Wishing everyone a good Sunday night. It’s been a while since I posted but I wanted to share some good news I couldn’t really have imagined six months ago: I’m starting to like myself and my life again.
I keep finding myself feeling surprised at how good I feel. I’ve been doing EMDR for about a year now and 6 months ago I was in a seriously dark place. I thought I would feel that way forever. I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m having WAY fewer flashbacks, I feel less panicky, I have more energy and curiosity, I’ve been able to start new hobbies and routines (biking! Boxing! Birding!) and even go on dates and meet lovely people. All of that has also had a positive effect. But the foundational shift has been EMDR.
A few big sticky targets I’ve had to go back to months later, after they seemed intractable at first. But things are starting to shift.
Just wanted to share some good news from the trenches for anyone earlier in this process wondering if it’ll ever get better! You’ve got this ❤️
Hi All,
I am on my 4th EMDR session, processing intense grief and trauma. The first 3 sessions were fine, just talking about things. Followed a few dots etc.
Yesterdays one, was insanely intense and I wasnt expecting it. We made a breakthrough on a core childhood memory driving and contributing to ongoing bouts of panic attacks and emotional suppression (I learned to just be cognitive somewhere along the line).
Anyway, today I feel like absolute poop. Im highly anxious, feel like sobbing every two minutes, full body aches - actually its exactly like a hangover from alcohol.
I know some of this is to be expected, especially when the words wouldnt come out my mouth yesterday to answer my fear "part" - the pain that came was so bad I thought I might die from the overwhelming urge to just crumble, I realised in that moment that the very thing I thought I was over and put behind me 20 years ago, is the very root of all my problems today. Oddly the memory is something Ive thought about a lot, but it stopped meaning anything to me when I consciously thought about it. I felt nothing at all about it, hence why I thought "I was fine and over it".
Now I cant stop thinking about it. And it hurts so bad and i just want to cry and somebody to hug me and tell me it's going to be fine. Is any of this normal? And please tell me it gets better now that the "thing" is out there.
Thanks in advance. Hope all is going well for you personally.
Its been only been a month and a half since I started EMDR. Initially I was so skeptical of the changes I was seeing because how could it work so fast?
I grew up with a lot of family violence, parents who were abusive both emotionally and physically, dad who was violent towards my mom and me (and my sibling) and mom who took it out on us as well. I didn't know what I was dealing with was abuse because it was so normal. It wasn't until I grew intensely su*cidal and depressed at 17 (CPTSD) that I began to put the dots together and realized how bad it was. Attempted many times. Retraumatized during Covid when I was locked in with my family. I also made a lot of bad choices in my 20s that added to my mental illness. In my mid-20s I slightly improved but still lived with a lot of dissociation and hypervigilance.
My hypervigilance was so bad I couldn't share an apartment with someone without being constantly triggered by my roommate's footsteps or the sound of them opening a box in the kitchen or just existing. Anyone in my emotional or physical proximity scared me. Relationships felt terrifying, animals and pets scared me too. PMS made me su*cidal every month. The smallest and biggest challenges could throw me off easily. I had a lot of desire to be creative and make stuff, but felt so trapped in my body. I'd just wake up everyday waiting for it to pass, and be "on" only when I had to leave my apartment.
After my first EMDR session I basically started being creative every single day. I have mostly good days now, and I feel alive and stable even when there are issues to deal with. I have SO much creative energy, I basically ended up making an entire jewellery collection in a month (never did that before). I started drawing, going for walks everyday, listening to birds and taking photographs. I still feel all sorts of emotions - sad, happy, annoyed, bored etc. - but it doesn't feel like chaos. I could feel sad over something that happened for a bit and then move on have a really good day. I am not triggered by loud sounds anymore (I used to get triggered by the sound of the wind LOL)
Obviously the process itself has not been totally easy. There were sessions where I cried, sessions that left me with some grief or fatigue. I'm still adjusting to not feeling low most of the time, and it's still a strange new feeling. But my hypervigilance is tuned down and I feel so much better. Overall this is probably the best thing I've done for my mental health. I like myself and I like my life, even its not perfect. I am almost 30 but I feel like child looking at the world through fresh eyes. I have a long, long way to go and I'm so excited.