EMDR is working for anxiety and traumatic memories
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Hello, I've had various flavours of mental health problems for 20 years due to traumatic family relationships and had many types of therapy on the NHS an privately: counselling, motivation for change therapy, psychoanalytic, cbt and cat but none of them ever resolved my core problem.
By chance I was offered EMDR therapy from my work due to stress and I am pleasantly surprised that after just a few sessions, chronic bad feelings and inappropriate overwhelming emotional responses are dissolving and I'm now feeling kind of calm and peaceful. It feels strange not to have constant pulses of adrenalin and sporadic tears, but it's a good strange. I was beginning to think that I had made the wrong decision to come off antidepressants after 18 years on them, and that I'd never be able to overcome my crippling anxiety issues without medication but now I have some hope that my past won't continue to control my future in quite the same way.
Has anyone else found EMDR helpful when other therapies sort of fallen flat? I wasn't even aware of this type of therapy until it was offered to me, so it might be worth considering for anyone else's resistant problems as long as you are prepared for some intense and painful experiences along the way. For me it was worth what felt like a risk at the begining, but looking back, it was that or keep living in fear of the irrational.
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chandra41347 sparklypickle
Posted
sparklypickle chandra41347
Posted
Ah I really should have led with this! :
EMDR stands for eye movement desensitisation reprocessing therapy.
It uses bilateral stimulation such as follow a side to side finger motion with your eyes, or having buzzers alternatively activating in each hand. This is used to help induce a state like rem sleep to allow the processing of memories that were traumatic and were not fully processed at the time.
It is not fully understood how it works so I can't really explain much more than that but during sessions you think about a bad experience in detail then your subconscious links this to previous events that you thought you'd forgotten about. Somehow at the end they all tie together and you can revisit the painful memory without having the painful response anymore.
azwty sparklypickle
Posted
hi sparklypickle
Im so glad u feel better now.. if my country have that kind of therapy i will sure join it but our country dont have it. I also like u , it has been 6 month without my anti depression, i was having really bad withdrawal symptom few month ago but getting less day by day. im now started taking supplement and herb and keep on searching for any other solution. Best of luck 😊
sparklypickle azwty
Posted
azwty sparklypickle
Posted
sparklypickle azwty
Posted
I've been off prozac for about 2 years. It has been a difficult time but I am finally learning to cope with my emotions that I never managed as a teen. I absolutely encourage you to explore every option. Medication is very helpful and powerful but it is sometimes a plaster over a wound and not a cure. I wish you the best of luck and stay positive that things really can change for the better.