EMDR FORUM ARCHIVE, 2000
Re:emdr
John (EMDR - Client) · 09/07/03 at 12:40 ET
Aikanae - I assume your questions were addressed to me. If not, oops. I wanted to comment first on 12-step programs, in terms of support. I attended religiously for 11 years before suffering a profound breakdown. Since I was doing everything that the program asked and then some, it was clear afterwards that there was more needed than what was provided there. Since the basic philosophy of 12- step programs are that addictions are "primary" and need to be considered first, last and all the time, the group mentality tends to cringe at the suggestion that abuse or trauma need to be worked out separately and differently. Not surprisingly, my second collapse was considered “relapse” to the addictionists. My sister is considering starting EMDR while attending her 12-step support group, my suggestion to her was to stick to people who support what she is doing and avoid discussing it in meetings. Who needs the flack? Though it has now been many years since I left, I attended several meetings this summer myself. I was so darn lonely that even a meeting was comforting as well as some of the topics that reminded me that there are things that I can do to get out of myself and take a breather from the discomfort by focusing on trying to make some sort of contribution to others. At one time, I focused on nothing but others, to my own demise. Now I fear the pendulum may have swung a bit far the other way. I’m sure there is a balance there somewhere. There is another reason that I have attended meetings I suppose. During my years of being a loyal member, there were a number of suicides of members 10 years and over. I feel that because of my own close call that I understand why this happens. It has nothing to do with failure to work the program, like so many suggest, but the fact that trying to heal trauma with treatment designed for addiction is preposterous. It could be likened to treating a congestive heart condition in the same manner that you would treat dehydration for example. The same fluid therapy that would save the dehydration patient could easily be the death of the congestive heart patient. Anyway, I have on occasion taken it upon myself to be the voice for those unable to any longer speak for themselves. I am often strong enough these days to risk major opposition without fear of the repercussions. My challenge is to remain tactful and influential when it comes to suggesting ideas that are a major leap for some others. It isn’t enough to just be right, presentation is everything. No good results when we just piss off others, truth or not. As far as what you said about getting together with some others to do workbook related activities, I suggest that if you don’t feel right or good about that, then honor those feelings. I would suggest to anyone doing EMDR or any kind of work dealing with trauma or childhood issues, to do all that they can that is supportive, helpful and feels right. It is tough enough without engaging in activities or with people that we would really rather not. Call it emotional integrity or just being true to yourself. Suggestions for support – I wish I could offer something useful about this for you but I cannot. It has been a tremendous pain for me as I have more than once had a screaming match with the God that I don’t understand about this issue of support. I am 42 – years old and have dedicated my life to helping others (co-dependently as those activities may have been), and here I am going through hell and 99% of the time, by myself. I think I said it already, but I’ll say it again, it is better alone than not at all. Trauma one by one – Personally, I would never suggest that each and every single trauma that I experienced has come up during EMDR. We have just chosen targets and let the process go where it will so to speak. I would have never been able to decide which incident’s created an internal malfunction for me vs. which ones were just more of the same. I suspect that chronic and multiple incident trauma process differently than single or later life stuff (my guess). If I had to go through each and every single incident, I’d be at this forever. What comes up seem more to be the ones that were “defining moments” that negatively effected my wiring somehow. My advice would be to trust the process and simply let it go where it will. I have often been amazed how EMDR gets things moving and something inside of me directs the course. I have told my therapist several times that there seems to be a major spiritual component to what happens during EMDR. I hope this helps a bit aikanae. Keep in mind that I’m not the professional on the site, just a fellow client with one persons EMDR experience and a few opinions. I had better end this post soon before the good Doctor thinks I’m trying to take over the site. <grin> For Dr. Sandra – I cringe whenever I hear you make a statement like “Sometimes people almost seem to get hooked on processing painful material”. I guess I’m sensitive to that for a couple of reasons. 1) I would suggest that anyone getting “hooked” on emotional pain has a hell of a lot more wrong with them than I want to imagine. 2) After I made a decision to give EMDR a try, my “talk” therapist of three-years accused me of being addicted to therapy. This was a major smack in the face for me, but I decided that when I have followed the advice of all the people around me, professional and otherwise, that the results were very nearly a premature “dirt nap”. I try to keep an open mind, be as honest as I can and honor the decision that I made to give EMDR the best that I can. I will only be able to judge the situation accurately a while after I’m finished I suspect. There has been resistance to my decision from the get go. Opinions have varied wildly about what is wrong with me and what needs to be done about it. Needless to say, in all the confusion, I felt that the best course of action was to make my own decision, because no one, absolutely NO ONE has MY best interest in mind more than I do. All that said, I have to admit that I have much more often been the “gutted fish” and less the “robust” feeling client. I will discuss this further with my therapist AGAIN, as your points are certainly worth considering. When I think about how things have come up between sessions, I can’t imagine what we could have done to slow that down. Maybe meet every couple of weeks instead twice a week. Personally I would willingly deal with more intense processing for a shorter time than drag this out for another 3 –years. I will end my sermon with one final comment. Something I have learned lately and it is this. It doesn’t seem to matter whether a person is considering EMDR, becoming a Christian, investing in mutual funds or becoming a distributor for the latest multi-level- marketer of colon cleansing products, the amount of information available for each of the items I mentioned as well as any other topic you can think of is absolutely overwhelming. A person can potentially find data to support absolutely any point of view whatsoever. For an individual that comes to look with an open mind, they can only read the pros and the cons and the special considerations, but when the day is done there is but one incontrovertible fact and it is this; There are no incontrovertible facts. A person must make a choice as to whether or not there is potentially sufficient benefit to taking a risk and giving it a try and thereby either proving or disproving something for themselves. Thanks to everyone for your valuable posts and to you Dr. Paulsen Inobe for keeping it on track.
My world collapsed due to alcoholism when I was 24 years old. I lost everything I had in this world except for what would fit in a Safeway shopping bag. After barely surviving that crash, I did everything that I was told too in order to get my life on track. I stayed sober and clean, went to school, started a new career, remarried, bought a house, had kids, put into a retirement plan, and helped anyone that ever asked me for anything. Then what? A collapse that made the first one look like a tipped over kool aid stand by comparison. I lost everything again, stoned cold sober. So, I suppose that because I’m now 42 years old and have managed to again find some semblance of hope, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I want my life. I was going to say that I wanted it back, but I’ve never really had it in the first place. So, anyway, that is my excuse for going at it hard. And probably why I get my back up when someone suggests something like you have.
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