Guest guest Posted August 29, 2011 Report Share Posted August 29, 2011 In my experience, EMDR is incredible - and I've not really used it for 'acute trauma' related to a specific incident. (Although I understand it works really well for that, too.) Both my therapist and another I worked with briefly (while my doc was on maternity leave) used protocols (that are much like guided meditation) while using thera-tappers (two little vibrating paddles you hold as you go through the protocol.) My therapist has been highly involved in trauma/EMDR research and is imaginative working outside the protocols as well. So what I have done isn't the 'old school' literal 'eye-movement' style treatment - research has shown the the key to EMDR's effectiveness, if I have my facts straight, is in the bi-lateral stimulation of your nervous system and brain, rather than literal eye-movement. I have used most often when I have been stuck in an intense feeling state around something that happens in the present that has emotional echoes of the past. What is incredible to me, is that just by holding these two little vibrating pieces of plastic, breathing, relaxing and talking through feelings, there is change - you feel the shift; the emotions release - and, at least for me, they don't come back - you are finally able to remember the feeling, the experience without *re-experiencing* the feelings/experiences. I don't know if it is like this for everyone - I've never actually talked with anyone else who has done EMDR. I have a feeling I fall towards the more responsive end of the spectrum, and my PTSD is on the milder end as well. According to my therapist, this treatment works extraordinarily well for people suffering at all different points on the spectrum. I do know that if you want to look into it, you need to find a therapist who specializes in EMDR treatment and trauma. I'm not a shrink, but from what you describe I'd say its worth trying if you can find someone in the know to work with... About " aha " moments- yeah, I've personally had several. I call them 'great reframings' - for me, I felt i was putting together a puzzle, but was missing pieces...an " aha " would come, then I'd realize the pieces were in the wrong places, and if I shifted up a couple here and there, the picture would change completely...as would its meaning. Its a good feeling, even if the world goes upside down for a while. Good luck. > > Thanks for writing this. I feel so similiar. My therapist told me the EMDR works best for specific trauma not ongoing chronic emotional and verbal abuse that has haunted me for 49 years. Does that sound right to you? > Also, is there an " aha " moment when seeing your pattern. I am still doing repitition compulsion in relationships because of the chronic verbal abuse. I guess I want to be done with it. My therapist still sees things that I do that I am not even aware of. Thanks so much for writing your story. > > Felicia Ward > Remember that people often have different perceptions of the same reality. You can both be right, and no one has to be wrong, if each of you is willing to let the other person have his or her perceptions and if both of you are willing to compromise. > > > To: WTOAdultChildren1 > Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011 4:51 PM > Subject: Re: Lonely... > > >  > > HI there - > > I just logged on to write a first post, but was so struck by yours that thought I'd dive in here instead. I'm sorry to hear that you feel this way, but you are not alone in being lonely. > > I completely hear and relate to what you have written. I know the feeling all too well, and wanted to share what I can about working out the feeling...for me, its a work in progress, but I have good reason, and experience to be hopeful about it. I hope you can find that, too... > > For me, I've spent much of my life feeling invisible, and wondering why. Despite having life-long friends, loving and true friends, I have been haunted by the feelings you describe. > I think I'm finally figuring it out the 'why'... > > The feelings you describe are part of what led me into therapy -- and it took me a couple of years before I recognized and accepted that I'd been a parentified child, that the mother I needed to believe had been ideal (because she needed to believe it about herself) had actually been emotionally abusive of me, emotional and physically abusive of my brother; that the closeness I thought we shared was actually a complex entangled contract that involved me holding up her version of reality like a tiny incompetent Atlas until I chose to shrug. > > Interestingly, it took me a long time trying to understand this persistent pattern in my other relationships - wondering why I always fell into the role of problem-solver or therapist with my closest friends and lovers; wondering why I was only ever attracted to emotionally complicated men with deep-seated attachment issues - before I really saw the origin of the pattern clearly in myself and in the nature of my attachment to my mother. > > Once I saw that I was 'relating to the world as one giant mother', my loneliness made 'sense' (in that illogical sort of sense way) - of course I was attracted to troubled people who wanted to relate to me through needing my help, through mutual complaint; of course my 'comfort zone' in relating to other people involved my solving their problems while I sloughed through mine alone, holding back all of my feelings - even tho' I resented it, it was familiar, it was family. That's how I understood 'connected' to feel. It's how I was raised - My own attachment pattern to my mother involved denying all of my true feelings in order to maintain and sustain my connection to her. Its not possible to feel anything *but* lonely when what you think of as 'connecting' means making your true self invisible. > > I'm not sure what your background is, but, from my own experience, having a parent who has BPD (in my case, my mother, informally diagnosed but fitting the 'high-functioning borderline' description given in SWOE to the letter) - also means you likely grew up with a very skewed, tinted understanding of social dynamics. When, as a child, you learn your social cuing from some one as vulnerable, threatened, and internally doubtful of their self-worth as a parent with BPD, what feels 'normal' to you is likely alien to the majority of people who didn't grow up that way. > > You might well be missing social cues that, once you learn to see them for what they are, will invite you into new kinds of relationships (or interactions within current relationships) that you find more fulfilling. The good news - you can choose to learn them. > > It takes time, it means being uncomfortable - but is it *ever* worth trying to get across that bridge! (And I say this as someone who is only part way over the bridge, still trying to learn this stuff--- who, while confident at work, in classrooms, when talking about opinions feels genuinely assertive and confident - but when in a room full of strangers in purely a social setting, I never feel more anxious or absolutely lonely.) > > The other thing - for me, PTSD is also part of the loneliness equation. (As I understand it many " all-good " children of BDP parents are also in the PTSD club.) Before I knew that I had PTSD, all I knew was that I felt trapped in my worst emotions and memories of the past, unable to shake them off. The more you try to run from the feeling, the more its undertow pulls you beneath its wave. It is literally being haunted by your old worst feelings. Once I began treating the PTSD (w/EMDR), its amazing how many of your old feelings dissipate. > In essence, by treating PTSD, you have the opportunity to rewire your old, stuck feelings - to stop the feedback loop and defuse your triggers. Old feelings that haunt you (PTSD or no) tend to be trying to communicate with you about unmet needs and unfinished business. Once you finish the business, they let go and their energy becomes something else. Truly letting go isn't an just intellectual thing - its physical and emotional, too. > > So - to sum it all up - when I was wearing similar shoes, what worked for me was to find an excellent psychodynamic therapist, take your time and develop trust in that relationship, and together, put my attachment patterns under the microscope and figure out what's not working, and how it echos your past. Figure out which part of it is the people you are choosing and why you choose them. If you are at all like I was, the people to whom I felt most intimately drawn to were generally echos of my complex unresolved entanglement with my mom. (And it'll shock you to see it, because you probably thought you were choosing people who were opposite...) Once I figured that out, and could look at my life through a different framework - great things started to happen a little at a time. > > Be forewarned, good relationships may feel 'wrong' at first - your instincts about who to befriend/trust, when to open up may be misrouted based from experience. I nearly ran away from my darling partner of 7 years because he didn't seem like my type. (He wasn't, and it's fabulous! He's more of what I longed for than I could have ever dreamed of wanting in a mate.) > > I hope this helped...it helped me to write. I had a lousy conversation with my mom today - and it helps to remember how much has changed since the days when I wondered what I was was doing wrong in life, why I felt so alien and unable to communicate, why I was depressed. I get it now, and I'm getting over it. > > I wish you your version of the same success. : ) > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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