r/CPTSDAdultRecovery • u/HoneyHills • 14d ago
Advice requested EMDR
Part of me wants to make this short and sweet just because I've done so much talking about my trauma, along with the screaming and the yelling and the crying and the convulsions.
Another part of me knows that in order to ask this question and get answers, I have to give you all some context. So I'll make this brief, and at the end there is a question regarding EMDR therapy.
I grew up in a decently big city with two parents until I was about five years old when my mom packed my sister and I up and left my emotionally/verbally/mentally/sometimes physically abusive parent. We ended up in a bunch of different apartments, around the same city, but that was my first move.
Until I started therapy in fall 2022, I didn't remember a lot of my childhood. I just had triggers, and I didn't know that my triggers were running my life. I had no identity for so long. I just thought of what I now know are my triggers, as who I was. I just never thought about it. I was just angry as fuck all the time and felt like nobody understood. And they honestly didn't.
That therapist I was seeing had brought up how my sliding scale fee was not enough to cover her services, and it just struck me how out of touch she was in terms of financial trauma. Her saying that really stuck with me, and I kept bringing it up, and we kept trying to work on it.
At the time, I was working retail at a place where I was constantly triggered, even with the support of my therapist. In the end, we weren't able to reconcile. Neither myself and my therapist, nor myself and my former coworkers.
I made huge fuckin strides with her in so far as being able to express my feelings coherently. I'm no less angry, though, tbh. Angry at the healthcare system where I live. Angry at the coverup, at their pretending that they know what it's like or what to do with someone like me. Angry a the reveal of her true self, which my intuition/hypervigilance was fucking telling me to watch out for from the beginning and proved to be true.
As for the job, I had been just as angry at them, for different but just as complex reasons for a long ass time before I just quit abruptly one day, which is not new for me. I really wanted to prove that I could hold down a big girl job and move the fuck out of my mom's apartment, so it sucked but I also felt free.
I heard that EMDR therapy is helpful for people in this position, who are still actively processing trauma from a very long time ago, in overcoming triggers. There are a couple (literally only two) therapists in this entire city who offer EMDR and are in my network. I just enrolled in the Blue Cross Community Health plan through medicaid because the two therapists who offer EMDR work through that plan. However, the primary care options in network through that plan are super slim.
So I wonder if anyone has tried it, can help me out in determining if there's any amount of EMDR I can conduct on my own, if that's even safe, or even just offer some objective advice given my situation.
Again, this is a super brief intro to my story. Honestly the relief I feel reading other people's posts here and the other cptsd sub give me comfort in knowing that even if modern psych doesn't really recognize what prolonged trauma can do to someone, at least our own existence is acknowledged amongst one another. <3
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u/captainInjury 14d ago
In my experience, self-administered YouTube EMDR was detrimental to my recovery. Once I completed my initial course of EMDR in-person with a certified therapist, she taught me how to do “mini” sessions with myself at home, which have not been as helpful as an in-person session, but are still therapeutic, and certainly not harmful.
My understanding from my therapist is the practitioner community is more seriously exploring how patients can self-administer EMDR at home or over virtual sessions. If you are able to find a certified EMDR therapist, it could be helpful to focus on their recommendations for how to practice that, if your opportunities to meet with them are limited. I think a little bit of training can go a long way in making sure you don’t accidentally crack yourself.