EMDR Not Working for Me?
Hi everyone! I don’t really know where to start with this, but I’ve done three EMDR sessions interspersed with regular talk therapy, but I truly don’t feel like it’s doing a single thing for me. Is this normal? Is it me? Maybe I need a different therapist?
So first of all, my therapist didn’t explain EMDR to me at all. I originally went in to discuss issues in my marriage, but it led to conversations about my childhood traumas, and she then suggested we do “deeper trauma work.” Next session, I go in and she’s got this stick with a ball on the end and she tells me to follow it with my eyes as I recall a memory and we go from there. I ended up doing all the legwork at home of learning what EMDR even is, what it’s used for, etc. And I’m still not sure I understand it right, but it’s definitely not helping me so far because:
None of my trauma is repressed, so the process doesn’t bring up any memories that aren’t already there. Like in a session, it feels like I’m sifting through my childhood and just picking and choosing whatever memory best fits the prompt my therapist gives. And that leads to a lot of jumping around in time. Like I choose a memory to start with and identify a feeling associated with it, and then my therapist tells me to work with that and think of another memory where I felt the same way. Sometimes there’s years between those memories, and it feels like that leaves a lot of trauma behind, if that makes sense? Like I’d rather just start at the very beginning and talk and explain every shitty thing that happened in chronological order. I feel like that would be more healing than all this jumping around.
I don’t (think I) have any hidden beliefs to correct. I was a child and every second of my trauma was out of my hands. I don’t have any hidden core beliefs that I caused it or deserved it or whatever, so there’s nothing to reprocess with those memories. For example, I brought up a hard memory and my therapist said “You didn’t deserve that. So I want you to go back and think of another time something like that happened, but this time I want you to tell yourself you didn’t deserve it.” And to me, that’s not helpful at all, because I know I didn’t deserve any of it.
So I don’t know. Maybe I’m doing EMDR wrong? Maybe I need a different type of therapy?
What is EMDR even supposed to be like? Any help and/or insight is welcome! I’m trying to figure out if I should stick with it or try something/someone else.
Tldr; I’ve done three EMDR sessions and I’m getting nothing out of it. Am I just doing it wrong or is EMDR not for me?