EMDR after effects

Hi all

I thought I'd ask about this here, because I know there's a few others here who have done some EMDR.

I've recently started on trauma work with my therapist- I've been working with him for a while. I've done a few EMDR sessions before on smaller snippets of a memory, this is the first time we've dealt with something more complex.

I came home wiped out, which didn't surprise me, but what got me was waking up the next morning with a headache, and my hip, shoulder and neck were all jammed up. I've been more emotional than usual since- I usually manage to unintentionally block most of that. My hip and shoulder often jam up when I'm stressed, but it doesn't usually come on that suddenly. Memory-wise, it has helped, but I've been feeling kind of fuzzy/lost since. I don't recall feeling like that last time, but last time was dealing with something that was no more than a few seconds of detailed memory.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Are the strong physical effects something that you feel each time you go through a session, or does it vary depending on what the memory is/how it affected you/how you're already doing on the day of therapy? It hasn't put me off going through more EMDR, but it's made me aware I maybe need to make the following day a quiet day at home- I pushed on and went and did extra days at work the following few days- it hit me emotionally once I had a day off from work.

Thanks
Lily

we were usually wiped out the next day and struggling for a few more days before things went back to normal. We planned for 3 days of not being at our best. Sometimes the effects were physical but for us it was mostly about exhaustion and mind fog. The EMDR protocol includes the following days, recommends a short contact to see how things are going and a diary for everything that comes up. So it is common enough to struggle to be included in the procedure.
L&Asti

Our T warned us that the processing continues for about 3 days after the EMDR session, so you are likely to feel exhausted, emotional, and have physical symptoms. She recalled someone who spiked a high fever and was in bed for a week afterwards, but the trauma memory did get processed and bothered her much less after that.

Same as the others. EMDR or other sorts of therapy work makes me feel like Dominos are cascading backwards in time for days as the traumas are processed and the processing echoes through memory-time.

I have had EMDR before. I had some lighter versions of it with my T past month which I cut short due to the intensity. And this very week I had to process by myself (well with the support of friends, I only now realize I could have emailed my T about it but well) two different triggers and it was rough too.

If things are too rough for you, do not hesitate to mail / phone your T about it and ask what you can do to ease things up. Do not stay by yourself waiting for it to pass like a kidney stone, the way I tend to do.
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Morwan.

So far the only therapist that I have found so far that may work with me (though I am still looking) (though is also busy at the moment) says they want to use EDMR for me. (i did not mention i think I have DID as of yet.)
So anyways there is a possibility I may do this, but it makes me a bit nervous too. I guess what I figure if I do try it and it is too hard then I will just have to stop?

There are specific protocols to follow in EMDR when the patient dissociates a lot. The speed and steps are very different. It is important that the therapist knows at least that you dissociates a lot, so that they can adapt the procedure to your needs.

Thankyou all, it's helpful to know much of what I've felt with it is pretty common.

ArbreMonde wrote:If things are too rough for you, do not hesitate to mail / phone your T about it and ask what you can do to ease things up. Do not stay by yourself waiting for it to pass like a kidney stone, the way I tend to do.

Yeah, I tend to wait- I worry that I would be bothering him by asking to come in sooner, but that's a fairly common reaction for me dealing with any health professional- I've had a lot in the past who made me feel like I was bothering or inconveniencing them by asking for a sooner appointment. Usually it's because I've been dealing with a receptionist who has no idea what I'm dealing with, telling me that they have no appointments available, end of story. I'm someone who wouldn't ask unless I was already up against the wall...

birdsong87 wrote:we were usually wiped out the next day and struggling for a few more days before things went back to normal. We planned for 3 days of not being at our best. Sometimes the effects were physical but for us it was mostly about exhaustion and mind fog. The EMDR protocol includes the following days, recommends a short contact to see how things are going and a diary for everything that comes up. So it is common enough to struggle to be included in the procedure.

After both you and Fireheart saying that I do somewhat recall my therapist telling me about the time it takes to process. And after how my body has responded to extreme stress in the past (same kind of reactions), it's not really surprising that my body has responded this way.

spinningtops wrote:So far the only therapist that I have found so far that may work with me (though I am still looking) (though is also busy at the moment) says they want to use EDMR for me. (i did not mention i think I have DID as of yet.)
So anyways there is a possibility I may do this, but it makes me a bit nervous too. I guess what I figure if I do try it and it is too hard then I will just have to stop?

For me it was a case of being willing to try anything. Nervous, definitely, and worried that it wouldn't work on me. But reassured that my therapist uses it regularly with patients. The flashbacks I was having were short but very overwhelming and upsetting and seemingly coming at me at random. A previous therapist wouldn't touch the issue because we "needed to know what happened" before we could do anything with it- I accept now I may never know what really happened. My biggest thing for me was accepting that what I've been through was trauma, because mine doesn't look like that of most other people. I spent probably a year working with him before we started looking at EMDR. That year had been total chaos though, so probably a case of needing to feel safe, both with him and at home has helped I think. I felt ready to try it though.