My First Session of EMDR Therapy

If you read my last post (which I’m imagining you did, just to make myself feel better), you may know that I’ve been in therapy for quite some time. Years, in fact. I started going when I was in kindergarten, believe it or not, and have been seeing some sort of mental health professional on and off over the years. So I feel like I’m pretty experienced in talk therapy and CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy).

But the one therapy that was never offered or suggested to me until now? EMDR therapy.

EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is a type of therapy usually used for people suffering with post traumatic stress disorder, but also helps with people with anxiety, depression, or phobias. It’s a therapy that’s used to help you process and unblock past traumas or events that you have not psychologically dealt with yet and may be affecting your life without you even knowing it. It uses the same eye movement that occurs in your REM sleep; you know, when you’re dreaming and processing your day, while your eyes rapidly move back and forth beneath your closed eyelids (have you ever seen someone sleeping and their eyes doing that? It’s a little freaky, to be honest!) Though some EMDR therapies use hand tapping or even audio stimulation instead of rapid eye movement.

My current therapist, who I have been seeing for almost a year and is just lovely, suggested that since I admitted I felt a little stuck in therapy and where I am in my life, we might try EMDR, since there may be some things in my past that might be contributing to my feeling of being stuck.

Without going into too many details (because seriously, who has the time or the interest to read my entire mental history? Hell, I don’t even want to write it!), right now I’ve been dealing with negative beliefs about myself, that have kept me from moving forward and making changes in my life, hence, making me feel pretty stuck. Since I've seemed to have tried everything else offered in therapy, why not EMDR? The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work for me, right?

I wasn't too nervous to start my first session. My therapist explained that we start with a traumatic memory or experience that upsets me and has stuck me for a long time and has had a negative impact on me. We chose one (it’s weird how when you’re asked to recall a negative memory, you suddenly blank, but then when you’re trying to sleep at night they all come flooding in, one right after another. Great timing, horrible memories!), and she explained that she would stick out her arm to the side, bent at the elbow, and swing her arm upright, pointing two fingers, left to right like a clock’s pendulum, for my eyes to follow. We positioned our chairs across from each other, but her chair to the right of me, so her arm and fingers were right in my eye line. She also told me before the session that if something was too painful or I got upset, I could quite literally tell her to stop, and we could take a break if needed.

We started our session by me recalling the memory in detail and focusing on that feeling. She then swung her arm and fingers from left to right, with my eyes following her fingers while I focused on that memory. She would then stop after about 10 seconds (or what felt like it), we would both take a deep breath, and she would ask me what I was feeling or thinking about. I would follow up with what I had felt or what had crossed my mind, and she would say, “let’s focus on that,” and then she continued swinging her arm/fingers and I again followed them me eyes. This whole process is literally called processing. That continued for the rest of the session.

Sounds kind of boring, right? Um, not so! Just from this one memory that had always stuck with me negatively, SO many other memories and feelings popped into my head. It really did feel like one thing literally led to another, that so many feelings and experiences I had were connected in one way or another to this one memory. I started crying at numerous times as other things popped into my head, as the connections were made and I admitted out loud and to myself some things that been buried inside my mind, that I never wanted to acknowledge.

EMDR sessions continue until the memory is resolved (aka reprocessed), meaning until the memory doesn’t upset or impact you anymore. We started at a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being that it doesn’t affect me at all, and 10 being pretty much this is such a terrifying memory that I can’t even deal with it. I started at a 7 during my first session and at the end it was at a 3. So for the next session, we focused on that memory again, to see if we could get my feelings towards it to a 0. And we did! After two sessions, that memory no longer negatively impacts me. I processed it during those two sessions, looked back on it, went through those feelings, and what came up during the session, and I was able to put it behind me. It was pretty amazing.

I can’t believe no other therapist had suggested EMDR before, but I’m so grateful my therapist did. We already have two other memories that we both feel I need to process (they popped up several times during my first two session, almost without me realizing it. Thank god my therapist takes notes), so that means my EMDR sessions will continue for the time being.

I’m eager to feel better and would highly recommend EMDR therapy to anyone who feels they may need it, but I also want to point out some tips that may help you during the process of, well, the process of EMDR:

#1. Have coping skills to use before, during, and after the sessions. My therapist warned me that bringing up traumatic or unresolved issues can be very upsetting and trigger some people. So before we began our sessions, she taught me some coping skills to help me feel safe and supported. We close each session with a coping skill that I choose, and I actually really needed to use a coping skill after our first session, where I spent most of it crying, after I got back into my car. I used a grounding technique to remind myself that I was present, safe, and okay. And guess what: it helped.

#2. Have someone besides your therapist you can lean on for support. You don’t have to tell them what happened during your session, but just having someone you know you can count on to be there for you as you revisit some traumatic events is really helpful and reassuring.

#3. Take time between EMDR sessions. I see my therapist once a week (not to brag), and at my last session, I told her I needed a break from my EMDR sessions to talk about my EMDR sessions and to process what I’ve been processing! I was a bit embarrassed to admit it, but she assured me that that was totally normal, and if I needed to take breaks in between sessions, I could. Especially if I was feeling nervous or anxious at upcoming sessions, which I was and just wanted to talk about how to prepare for those new sessions and new sets of memories and what may come up. So please be open and honest with your therapist if you need a break. You’re already pushing yourself a lot, so don’t push yourself even more to the point of hurting your mental health.

EMDR is tough, rigorous, and extremely emotionally draining, but so rewarding. I know it helps a lot with people with PTSD, but I’m so impressed that it’s helping me, with my anxiety, depression, and past memories that are hindering my recovery. And I feel so lucky that I’m at a point where I’m able to challenge myself to confront these fears and try to change, and that I have a great, supportive therapist who is willing to work with me. I hope it helps me get to a point where I’m able to live my life the way I want to, and not the way my negative beliefs and disorders have made me think I should.

Has anyone else gone through EMDR therapy? Has it helped you at all? If so, let me know! I’d love to hear from you! And if you’re interested in more of my EMDR journey, let me know if you’d like to hear more about it. I’m sure the mental health adventures aren’t over yet!

Stay Weird!