EMDR & lack of specific memories

[RubyCatherine]

Hello. I am a 31 yr old female. After so many years of wondering what is wrong with me, I stumbled upon "cptsd" on Wikipedia one month ago today. I'd had moments where something matched my symptoms slightly (PTSD) and more than that (Avoidant or Detached). I never tried to identify the characteristic I had of wanting to hide or skip away from everyone. I... hid from It. Lol. It took days for me to accept that that is shame.

That Wikipedia page was like a present at first because most of my undesirable social and emotional... eccentricities? were covered. For weeks it felt like a blessing to know this, but now it's more of a curse. Of course I expected misery in recovering, but I didn't realize it would be so intense so soon. I'm variously experiencing sadness, anger, and regret (which may be coming from shame?).

I hope that's enough background. Anyway, I went to a therapist who does EMDR and explained a few things, though I did not mention cptsd because I wanted to see what she thought without suggestion). I mentioned some things that have happened and that I have for most of my life felt like everyone is in a circle (couldn't communicate it then, but I guess I meant of social acceptance or approval) and I am on the outside because I'm different. She mentioned trauma and suggested EMDR.

The majority of the trauma comes from what is commonly referred to as peer bullying, but as bullying didn't become such a social issue until after my torture time was over, I didn't know it as that. I would have said that people were mean to me -- a number of people took pleasure in harassing me nearly every day for several years. Even now I prefer to see it as verbal or perhaps emotional abuse because no one took my lunch money and that's what a bully is in my mind.

And, the problem:

I have had one EMDR session and it was okay. I'm supposed to come with things I want to work on, but I'm afraid I will run out of specific memories in a short time because I recall few specific incidents. I have impressions of the commonly occurring incidents, but it's mostly the ones that were different or more severe that stick out in my mind. I don't remember most of the things that were said to me or what I was called. But I know they happened. Up until now I've been glad I don't remember details. But now I seem to need them for EMDR, right?

Has anyone else experienced such a blank? Perhaps it's relatively common?

Did it hold you back in recovery, whether you tried EMDR or not?

I have a box of angsty and likely heartbreaking teenage journals. I am tempted to open them for the info they contain, but there is some bad stuff and I wonder if I should just keep them closed. Thoughts?

Let me know if I can elaborate or clarify anything. I am a nonlinear thinker and made this stream of consciousness as short as I could.

Thank you for reading.

[Kizzie]

Hi RubyCatharine and welcome to OOTS    Ah yes, the blessing and the curse of finding out you have Complex PTSD, many of us here know the feeling well.

I tried EMDR a few years ago and it did not go well for me because the T was not trained in Complex PTSD nor did she work with me on safety (something I found out later is crucial).  You my want to ask your T if s/he has training in EMDR for Complex PTSD specifically.  It might also be an idea to ask about whether or not to look at your journals.

Over the years I have found it difficult with any T to describe what I went through by relating certain, specific memories not because it was a blank, but instead was just this flow of emotion laden lava running under the surface or at least that's what it felt like. When I would try and tune into it it would be like this high volume static, a mixed up stream of emotions and images.  Anyway, I couldn't separate out many individual incidents either because it was the accumulation of abuse/trauma over time that was problematic. 

I don't know what EMDR T's are taught for dealing with that accumulation (versus individual, specific memories), but in my case she tapped into the flow and I went into a big emotional flashback twice then gave up on going.

Some here have had great success with EMDR so don't let this put you off entirely, you may just want to check that s/he has relevant training. 

Just my thoughts/experience but hope some of this helps. 

[Three Roses]

Oh my goodness I'm not sure why I didn't see this until now!   Hello and welcome, RubyCatherine! So glad you've joined us here.

I have no experience with EMDR so will leave it to others to respond - just wanted to welcome you and thank you for joining!

[Eyessoblue]

I'm on a waiting list for EMDR, really nervous about it, have you looked on YouTube? There's quite a lot of info on there about it, some positive and some not so good!

[Saule]

I've had great success with EMDR and am currently seeing a therapist who is trained in various therapeutic modalities including EMDR for complex PTSD/dissociation etc. I chose my therapist particularly because I knew they had extensive training and experience in this area.

From my experiences so far and reading I've done on EMDR, it is not necessary to have detailed memories to 'target' for EMDR sessions. Often focusing on a simple unusual sensation in the body, or a more vague sense of unease without a clear memory is enough. The great thing about EMDR is it can often help you work out the memories that are connected to these vague feelings or sensations. That has been my experience anyway. I hope I'm making sense!

I think what is more important than having a whole lot of traumatic memories to 'work on' is that your T is experienced in working with complex trauma and dissociation in their use of EMDR. Perhaps bring up with your T your concerns about not always having a particular memory or issue to work on every session and see what they say? I often come to my EMDR sessions completely blank and unsure about what I want to work on, but usually a few questions from my T will get me started talking about something that would be worthwhile exploring. Often we will 'check in' about the past week and if anything particular has come up in between sessions, or follow on directly from the last session where we may have started processing but not completely worked through something.

I hope this gives you some insight!