EMDR - Has anyone done this

@MDT

Ill b updating my experience with the EMDR therapy weekly on here. Im sure writing out how i feel will help me process it. Start Fri. Life is good & stable now so im going to try & c it as jumping back into the past just for a short time then continue with all the good im doing now.

I agree that sometimes making a change is just as good, if not better, than working through things that are actually standing in our way @Former-Member The old saying 'a change is as good as a holiday' is so often true.

@MDT

Heres the blurb about it

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a form of psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the 1990s in which the person being treated is asked to recall distressing images; the therapist then directs the client in one type of bilateral sensory input, such as side-to-side eye movements or hand tapping.

Ive recently been given a dva white card so they will pay for it all. Ive never had any $ all my life so never really had much therapy. Only had the standard 10 sessions a yr which were totally useless for me.

Ill b having it done weekly starting fri.

I gave this therapist a total history of my lifes traumas

He then works out where to start to hopefully get to the root cause.

On fri we r mostly working on a breathing technique to help calm me down & a safe memory which ill use in each session. After going over the trauma you must be able to come back to a safe place in your mind.

The idea is that when the trauma occured u believe something neg about yourself & the therapist then replaces this thought with a pos belief. Its using both sides of the brain. Cause i think when the trauma occured only one side of the brain reacts. Something like that but ill share my experiences. Its supposed to stop the strong triggers allow u to remember without reacting. Help u to move forwards in a pos way rather than u constantly relieving the past.

Its supposed to b the most advanced technique for trauma. I believe its all from traumas. With me at least. Some people do find it way too traumatic tho. Im willing to try it as i have good support. Ive recently moved to a new place. Since moving ive been triggered 3x so they put me on a stronger mood stabilizer. One thats more sedating also as after im triggered i dont sleep.

Im hoping the pill will help me restabilize after the sessions.

I want to try tho. Im hoping itll bring a lot more clarity to what happened & why it affected me also. Cause i get annoyed that it has affected me. Others have had such easier lives & always say to me just forget about the past. Well i tried that but it didnt stop the triggers. I do singing prac learning piano. I exercise very regularly. Started teaching exercise. I attend a meditation classes regularly. All the pos things give me a life however dont stop the triggers & dont let me get close to people. I hate truly hate having a mental illness because no1 can see it & so many in society dont believe it. I hate having to live off meds when im a good person that hasnt harmed anyone.

Hey @Former-Member just want to say that I love your sharing and the way you write. We have a lot in common in some ways. I'm not up to responding with a rave about my life right now, but wanted you to know how strongly a lot of what you say resonates with me. It's so good that you found the forums - for you and for us! You describe the theory of EMDR really well.

@MDT I've been doing it for a while now.

For me the bilateral stimulus comes from little buzzers I hold in my hands that buzz alternately for about a minute while I focus on one moment of an event, and then we talk about what I felt emotionally/mentally and physically while I focussed, then we repeat the stimulus with whatever came to mind on the previous one. I'm finding that my complex PTSD triggers are fewer and less intense and I recover faster from them. I am more able to say 'that's the past, that's just a memory' rather than getting stuck and reliving a traumatic event. I also recently managed to avoid a potential trigger rather than freeze up, which is huge for me. It's really amazing to me that such a simple process can stimulate new neural pathways and stop me from being so ruled by my 'lizard brain' some of the time.

@eth

I was paid yrs ago by a comp in Melb to write the story of the death of my child because they loved the way i write. Its odd as my parents rarely said anything nice about me or praised me but they both stated i had a way with writing. I dont see it but hey if i reach someone on some level its its great. I wrote songs yrs ago & am now learning piano so im hoping to revisit song writing again one day if its meant to be.

@MDT

Thats amazing how ur getting so much out of the EMDR. I think i will also. Im keen to share the experience. Im not nervous about rather just viewing it as an appt within my daily activities. Just a shame that many cant afford it hey

@eth

@MDT

I think when ur an adult u can process trauma. I witnessed a motorbike accident a yr ago whilst doing lollipop duty. After i finished work i just broke into tears. I hugged my son & told him about it. I also ph lifeline that night cause i needed to talk about it. I then spent the next 3days trying to find out where the man was. Which hosp he was in. I desperately needed to let him know i knew it wasnt his fault & that id act as a witness in crt. Eventually i sent a get well card to the hosp.sure i reported to police. I was then at peace cause id processed the trauma.

However when ur a kid & experience trauma u often just freeze so then when something similar happens as an adult u react in that same way.

Ill freeze in fear as an adult & people just dont get why u freeze & dont speak out. Often ill then disassociate the next day cause im trying to escape from the horrible feeling.

Really hoping the EMDR helps with this as im sure it will.

Cant go fully forwards til i break this pattern of freezing up. It leaves u powerless too which isnt good cause u need ur adult power to stand up for yourself

Hey @Former-Member I'm very sorry to hear of the loss of your child. I had a stillborn when in a dv relationship so maybe I understand a bit what it feels like. Here for you if you want to talk about it some more. If you enter grief on the search bar you will find several threads about it. I think the most recent one is "Experiences of grief" where I and a few others shared what it is like for us.

Great to hear that you've had positive feedback about your writing. Shame your parents didn't support you more. I've been writing most of my life but it comes in fits and bursts. Often when I'm hypomanic or manic. I'm challenging myself these days to get my creative flow happening when I'm more stable. Joined the local writers centre this year and have done a few workshops including an amazing one about writing trauma. And joined a monthly writing group where we share a piece and recieve critique on it. And entered a competition for grief awareness month in August. Recently I've done 2 live readings at the main art gallery in town. Didn't win a prize but it was amazing for my self-esteem and confidence in my writing. Wrote another piece last night that I will work on some more and possibly read again at the art gallery next Tuesday. The exercise this time was called 'ekphrastic' writing where you write in response to an art work.

To me writing song lyrics is a form of poetry. I used to write to the rhythm of music sometimes. Don't ever stop! It's such good therapy even if we don't share it.

I've also written my life story for a psychologist a couple of years ago - it was meant to be a 6 line answer on a form and turned into 14 pages, and even that was virtually in point form! So much more I could have written. It was really good to have a copy of that to share with my more recent psychologist right at the start of our sessions, so I hope you've kept yours. She actually said it was an honour to her that I chose to share it. It helped enormously with the trauma mapping we needed to do in preparation for the EMDR we are now doing. I see her again today.

I think you might have meant your last post to @MDT to be for me. I wrote how much and how the EMDR is helping me in further response to Hamsolo01's asking what it is. No worries, it's easy to get wires crossed with this sort of written and sometimes delayed conversation.

Regarding cost - there is a medicare rebate of $126 per session that can be claimed after the Mental Health Care Plan is used up. In my case (before I got NDIS funding) that meant paying a $50 gap each time, which I saw as an investment in my well-being, despite it making things really tight on a DSP.

Hope you are having a good day.