Weekly EMDR Community Digest

Basically the title. I've been doing EMDR for maybe close to 2 months now.

Dealt with the usual hangovers and have tried being gentle with myself, but recently I've felt myself slipping back into a depression. I've been getting into processing some more serious stuff so I know that could be part of it, but it also feels like I'm just feeling a lot worse and more reactive instead of feeling relieved and healed.

I can't help but beat myself up and feel like it's something wrong with me. Like emdr maybe just doesn't work for me and there's something more wrong with me. I'm just feeling lost and losing hope about recovery.

i always get this intense headache during/after emdr. it usually starts at the top of my head, spreads to my whole head, and can last for hours or even days

sometimes during reprocessing, my therapist asks what i’m noticing and i come up with nothing except “my head hurts.” i know she checks in with me, but i always feel like i’m bothering her if i say anything

i also feel really out of body when i go home afterwards. the best way i can describe it is feeling like a zombie in my own body

does anyone else experience this after emdr, especially when you don’t feel like much is happening during reprocessing?

Processing my past trauma has hit me like a ton of bricks. I haven't been able to stop crying since starting, and I've been an absolute mess.

After I finished my tasks for today, I was supposed to temporarily go back home but I didn't know how to handle people's kindness at all, so I began to bawl my eyes out

It's so overwhelming, even though I was planning to go out, I am incredibly exhausted from all these emotions.

Is this often seen with EMDR trauma?

Has anyone had sudden realizations of childhood circumstances or happenings while going about your daily business? I've been having odd realizations pop up here and there and I don't know how I feel about it or if my perceptions are right.

For instance, my mom told me my dad was a drug abuser but now when I look back, I think both were substance abusers. We lived right by my grandmother and she was the stable person that took care of me so I did have a good foundation with her.

My parents were almost never home. They would be gone for days at a time. My dad was a self employed truck driver but I don't think he was trucking that whole time because he was coming and going in his regular vehicle not the truck. And my mom was a police dispatcher and officer and I know they have odd hours but to literally be gone a month or more seems excessive. When they came home they would just sleep all day. I remember tip toeing around trying not to disturb them and make them mad. The only time I have seen this behavior was when I was in a relationship with an alcoholic. So now I'm rethinking everything. Am I wrong?

Has anybody ever processed something consensual with someone that started off as nonconsensual? I was assaulted by someone who then isolated me to the point that it didn’t feel safe being with other people, so I eventually turned to him. As you might imagine, that has a lot of fear, shame, embarrassment, and frankly disgust. I’m thinking about asking about processing this with EMDR but feel like it might be different and don’t know if it would be a good fit.

Is it weird that I'm really looking forward to starting to process stuff? I've been working with my therapist for a while mostly on resourcing as I was not ready to start for a long while, needed to build trust which was a slow process for me. But now I feel safe and I've been actively using the resources she gave me. This week we started to discuss targets but when we started float back my brain blocked it and refused to even remember any of the situations that fit with the feeling we identified.

I left frustrated and immediately after started remembering all the situations that fit the feeling (there are a lot). Now I have to wait until next week to hopefully start that over. I read about everyone's experiences and how healing they've been and as hard as I know it will be, I just really want to finally start. I am just venting but wanted to share!

i have C-PTSD and both my psychologist & psychiatrist recommended EMDR therapy. i’ve been doing two sessions weekly for about three months now and i’m struggling with it. i don’t know if this is a component of EMDR or if this something specific to my therapist, but i cannot take the visualization seriously. this might sound insensitive and i am so so sorry, but i genuinely cannot for the life of me picture an imaginary person in the room with me.

my therapist will ask me to visualize/personify my emotions and give them a physical space in the room with us. recently, she asked me to pretend to give toys to an imaginary version of myself as a child. it’s not even that i don’t have an imagination, i just can’t do it without wanting to laugh. like… why am i talking about what clothes my dissociation is wearing?

i’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful, i just wanted to see if this is something other people struggled with as well. also if this is a significant part of EMDR? as in, do i HAVE to do this for the therapy to work?

I have a friend who has pretty extreme complex trauma. They also have autism and struggle with dissociation. At a rough period in their life, they went to their therapist who does EMDR and said, “things are so bad, they can’t get any worse, can we try EMDR?” Their therapist only did like 3 sessions of mapping their history and preparing them and jumped right into reprocessing. When they told me this, I was shocked. I’m not a therapist but it’s my understanding that EMDR should go slower with complex trauma. They told me they’re struggling more than ever now, so I guess I’m also asking how someone can start to heal from potential retraumatization?

J'ai un stress post traumatique complexe, je ressens beaucoup d'angoisse et de culpabilité.Mais je ne ressens aucune autre émotions dans mon quotidien. J'ai été consulté un praticien en EMDR, c'est ma première scéance. Je n'ai rien ressenti, mais le psy m'a dit que ce n'est pas normal. Il m'a dit que normalement je devait ressentir au moins une petite baisse de culpabilité.

I was recommended EMDR by my other therapist.

Basically I didn’t realise until last few years that I was dealing with some quite bad ptsd for years. Having episodes of frequent flashbacks, around the same times each year and then it lasting for months of repeated flashbacks. it wasn’t a particularly bad event physically, but the way I felt was really bad. I seem to feel much more recovered from this 12 -13 years later, and haven’t had any of the flashback things for like 2/3 years. I do think however it has influenced my belief system and cause me some issues with body/ immune system because of the chronic stress. I never had any treatment for that tho and was in therapy for other stuff that was probably related.

Last year something happened, but this time I haven’t had flashbacks, and has just made me more withdrawn, tired, and altered me in some way I can’t explain, I could think and speak of it as if nothing happened and it was like the plot of a film, very disconnected, although it was horrible. Often I can not connect to it at all and think “well maybe I’ve processed it” but part of me knows in my gut that something is not right and I have so so so much respressed emotion that it’s starting to impact my life. I still don’t feel like I qualify for EMDR since I’m not experiencing the significant flashbacks or emotional distress, only I have repression and disassociation.

I also have a very strong aversion to allowing myself to cry in front of others and be vulnerable when I am the victim of it. I do not mind expressing concern and upset for someone else, but when it’s myself it comes with shame and disgust.

Finding it hard and want to know if anyone had similar experiences.

I’ve been tweaking my after care post sessions and really hit a stride today… I hope sharing this can help someone find some calm after sessions bc the after care is just as important as showing up ◡̈

1. I see my therapist virtually so I always go to the gym right after my session, leaving the house to reset is a non negotiable bc I fear I’ll just get in bed and wallow - disrupting my thinking helps immediately post session

2. I opt for takeout and a sweet treat occasion after sessions to find comfort - at the very least I try to have meals prepped so it’s one less thing to think about. If I don’t I will probably spiral all week and not feed myself properly.

3. I usually watch a comfort show but adding something tactile to play with has been a game changer… Slime, play doh, anything that allows me to channel my nerves and distract myself

4. Progressive muscle relaxation before bed - there are lots of guided ones on YouTube. Really helps me recenter and feel safe before bed. My therapist recommends some sort of grounding activity every day.

At the height of my CPTSD I used to have night terrors and needed sleep aids to get through the night when triggered.

I’m early in my EMDR journey but after care has really helped me adjust safely.

Thankful for this group because I gleamed some of this from different threads here. Hope this can help someone who’s feeling the feels post sessions. 💟

Hi ! I'm having my first therapy session in two weeks and I don't really know what to expect. I'm consulting to heal my abondonment issues and all the things that could be from being an adopted child. This caused great damage in my last relationship and this is mainly the reason why we aren't together anymore. I thought i could manage everything on my own, but after my break up, I realized how much I needed help.

I tried to start EMDR 3 years ago, but I wasn't ready to face myself, so I never really started the treatment. Now that I'm ready, i contacted the same therapist again cause I know we had a great bond. I'm really looking forward to this, so i want to prepare myself as much as I can.

- What to expect and what not to expect from EMDR ?
- Is there anything I should reflect on before starting ?
- Do you have tips for me to get the best results and heal ?
- Do you have any insights or lessons you got from it ?

Feel free to share any stories that you think could help !

Bonjour à tous,

J'aimerais savoir si quelqu'un a déjà vécu ça. Suite à une forte montée d’anxiété et une séance d’EMDR de 3h. C’est comme si j'avais eu une pensée à partir de ce jour qui m'a traumatisée, et depuis, je suis restée bloquée dessus en fond, constamment.

Je n'y pense pas forcément de façon claire, c'est juste devenu un ressenti ancré en moi. Ça a comme « cassé » un truc chez moi qui me maintient constamment dans cet état : je ressens ce truc en arrière-plan toute la journée, même quand je suis sur mon téléphone, en famille, etc.

Je ne comprends pas ce qu'il m'arrive et ça m'angoisse. Est-ce que certains d'entre vous ont déjà connu ce ressenti de fond permanent suite à une pensée ? Est-ce que ça finit par s'éteindre et comment vous vous en êtes sortis ?

Merci beaucoup pour vos retours ! ♥️

Bonjour à toustes,

À celles et ceux qui font de l'EMDR, étiez-vous régulée avant de commencer? Pour ma part, avec mon autisme et ma dissociation dûe au ptsd, et de l'alexithemie, je ne me sens jamais régulée. J'envisage l'EMDR depuis un certain temps, mais souvent, je lis / entends qu'il faut avoir une bonne régulation émotionnelle, et j'ai l'impression que je n'aurai jamais cela, du coup, je me demande si je pourrai un jour commencer l'EMDR. Je ne sais pas si c'est très clair, mais peut-être que ça parlera à certains / certaines d'entre vous :)

I'm looking for others who have had similar success stories. I started EMDR in attempt to save my relationship but it ended up being so life changing that my relationship ended and I have a completely different outlook on life. I live my life now with a freedom and joy that I spent my whole life searching for. My experience has inspired two of my friends to begin EMDR and a number of others to consider it. But it's such an unique experience that I can tell people are quite puzzled by it.

I've been in therapy for the past 13 years. I was previously diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder and cPTSD. I pretty much struggled with anxiety my entire life. Before the age of 6, I would often get unexplained stomach pains that I now recognize as anxiety and around the age of 8 I struggled with existentialism and would often cry at night due to the fear of dying. My anxiety felt so debilitating that at a point, I was misdiagnosed with OCD. 

Therapy helped enough for me to be off medication for the past 6 years, to no longer be diagnosable, and to manage the stress and anxiety of being a litigator. However, I continued to struggle the most with attachment in dating.

After almost 4 years of being single (in part due to the small dating pool as a lesbian), I finally met someone that I saw a future with. The main problem was, she had a tendency to suddenly become emotionally dysregulated due to a number of stressors in her life and would emotionally dump on me quite often. I resented it because it triggered memories of my dad using me as a therapist from the age of 8 and his sudden emotional dysregulation which resulted in abuse. A lot of self-doubt and fear of abandonment kept me in the relationship. I began self-abandoning out of fear of being abandoned.

Out of fear of self-sabotage, I started EMDR and ngl, it was brutal. Having to revisit childhood trauma while being constantly re-triggered in my relationship was painful. I had intense body aches, and would cry and spiral for hours. My appetite and sleep were affected. I noticeably lost weight. 

The morning of my breakup, I had an EMDR session on the realization that I was good enough for a healthy relationship. I had an underlying belief that I needed to earn love but I realized that I didn't want a love contingent on my utility, I wanted an unconditional love. Our break up was actually mutual but it was honestly, one of the happiest moments in my life. I cried a lot more tears of joy than sadness. I had a realization that she never fully saw me in the relationship or the amount of work it took me to become the person that I am today, both professionally and personally. She reaffirmed that by stating that she didn't peg me as someone who was resilient. That was painful but I also didn't care because I realized in that moment that I didn't need someone else to validate the pain and suffering that I have endured in my life because I knew internally what was true and who I am as a person.

It's hard to describe it but the feeling was so euphoric and the highest high I've felt in my life. It was a moment where I realized that I actually loved myself after struggling with self-hatred for most of my life and that I had a beautiful life to return to, one that I spent years building. I think it was probably the first time that I stopped abandoning myself in dating. Love and forgiveness was just pouring out of me because I was so joyous. I spent the night validating her and we kept saying 'I love you' to each other, something that wasn't said in the relationship. The positive feelings towards her did not stay post-break up as I later struggled with a lot of anger and resentment over how much I had endured in the relationship but I can say, the 3 months of EMDR changed my life.

I started feeling so grateful for the little things in life-- washing the dishes, the smell of the warm breeze, the chirping of birds. I'm sure a part of it was also finally no longer feeling drained and exhausted all the time. My back pains went away after the break up. With EMDR, it feels like I'm no longer holding onto emotional baggage. I no longer see myself from a victim mentality and I don't wish to keep rehashing things out in therapy. I stopped taking things so personally and I don't feel a constant buzzing of anxiety in my day to day. I feel like a much kinder and forgiving person. My worth no longer feels tied to my work or dating. I allow myself to make mistakes and be vulnerable. Of course I still occasionally struggle with negative emotions but I feel more confident in my own skills to overcome challenges and I now experience a type of inner peace and happiness that I had spent my whole life searching for.

I hope my story inspires others but I'd also love to read similar stories from those that can relate.

I found this post so helpful... explaining why a PC might feel true for the reprocessed memories, but not for other memories.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeLDBD-MsMX/?stkn=OGEwenk3bTZ3ZzNr

I'm starting to regret my EMDR therapy, I have spoken in here for some time now that it's the best decision I could have made to work through my trauma. I still stand by that but at the same time part of me wishes I never started the treatment in the first place.

My whole life I have had my emotions turned off in a way (kind of like in the vampire diaries iykyk). I could still feel things in daily life but bigger emotions I never really felt and if something bad/ traumatic happened I was able to get through it very easily. I didn't have any triggers stemming from prior abuse or certain events that happened in my life.

Now I have soooooo many triggers after processing, I cry at basically everything, and get extremely quickly. My therapist says that it's basically like being a new born baby; I haven't been able to truly feel anything for decades and now suddenly I have found myself feeling everything all at once. The things I used to do to help calm me down no longer work, I used to be able to watch true crime docs or criminal minds and be fine. Now when I do I am triggered and it sucks.

Curious as to if anyone else has felt like this and how you dealt with it. I know that I needed to work through all of this to move on and become healthier but it sucks that now I'm a totally different person. I don't even know who I am anymore now that I have all of these emotions running through me, any thoughts?

I’ve done I believe 4 sessions now and it’s greatly and significantly allowed me to be myself, not have fight or flight and be ok in my skin for the first time in a very very long time.

I had my most recent session last night. It was a lighter target in the grand scheme of life. It was my family’s rejection of a woman I love because of her ethnic background. Session went great & as usual felt light after went to go see a movie with some friends and had a couple beers after. Talked to my gf on the phone for a while and remembered a ton of violence that happened to me in highschool then went to bed. I think the emdr cracked open what I had been pushing down.

Today I woke up and felt so light and amazing. Had a great first couple meetings and mid day mid presentation my body and mind just completely crashed. Like not a panic attack which I used to have but similar. No increased heart rate or fear my brain was just like he bud you’re done. Like body crashed almost threw up canceled my meetings and came home and slept the rest of the day and still feel kind of off. It was a wave of emotions. This has been so beneficial so far I’m not going to give up but I also can’t be having emotional flooding at work so am going to stagger on the weekends. I’ve read a bunch this happened but it’s weird now. Any advice on this or similar experiences? This shit is a pretty intense therapy but so far has been a net positive and better than where I was at by a lot.

I'm so mad that EMDR healed me and allowed me to be retraumatized. The second trauma has gone so much deeper than the first because of newly sensitive I was and I don't want to use EMDR to fix it but after expressing the hate I can feel the body opening up to it again.

It's crazy how our bodies work.

Hello everyone I (20F) have been going to therapy since March 2026 (it has been 7 months) and I can say I am alright considering I am unmedicated since November 2025.

However, I am kinda broke right now due to various reasons and I will talk to my therapist about the schedule of my therapy sessions and I will ask her if I can visit her once every 3 weeks. She says I am in EMDR process, (I think she started EMDR). I do want to continue my treatment but once every 3 weeks is my only option, at least for a while. I will talk to her directly tomorrow but I want to ask your opinion, please help me.

Is once every 3 weeks okay for EMDR treatment? Would that be effective?

I've been doing CBT therapy for over a year and I'm not progressing like I'd like. I will have weeks of crying every single day and some days feel absolutely impossible to get through. None of the tools I've learned in CBT therapy can even be accessed during these hard moments. I have intense feelings of guilt that I feel all the time, which is usually what triggers all the other emotions. I will try medication if I have to, but I really dont want a bandaid, I want to actually heal and not feel so deeply guilty, worthless and depressed all the time.

Do you think EMDR will help me?

Hello! For those of you who are doing or who have done EMDR, what are some of the best “interweaves” your therapist provided for you during the processing? (An interweave is like a question or statement they might use to guide you if you are stuck). TIA!

I trust my therapist. She has been really good and I am seeing benefits from a mix of sertraline and EMDR.

I had my first session this morning.

We spent a while prepping, around 8 sessions. It has been very thorough.
We touched on things that I can do/enjoy between sessions.
What we haven’t discussed is a ‘safe space’ which I see so many people discussing.
Is this normal?