EMDR for healing from abuse

[Lightness]

Hi ladies
Has anyone tried EMDR? I’m wondering if it is worth trying as some of my symptoms are causing me to feel like I’m surviving but stuck. I suffer with anxiety, panic attacks and brain fog. The abuse I endured by him was long lasting but the individual incidents on their own don’t sound that significant (eg he would shove me or say nasty things or stare at me or tell me what to do). I wonder if multiple traumas like that can be treated effectively with EMDR.

I just want to say that I don’t think I am minimising my experiences as it was unbearable as has seriously impacted my well-being and my life. I think they call it the water torturer.

Lx

[SunshineRainflower]

Hi Lightness,

I haven’t had EMDR myself but I have heard that it is often effective for abuse and trauma processing. Perhaps one of the other ladies who has had it can tell you about it further.

I know what you mean about the water torturer more subtle type of abuse, my ex was very careful, controlled and craftily abusive and manipulative so that it was very hard to detect at first. It doesn’t make it any less difficult to overcome, in fact it can be one of the toughest types of abuse to detect and overcome because it makes you feel like you’re going mad. Coupled with the fact that abusers often tell us we are imagining things, ‘it’s all in our head’ etc and people who havent experienced it thinking we are over dramatising, it can be very damaging to the psyche, make us doubt ourselves, ruin our confidence and make us extremely anxious and depressed.

Any sort of trauma processing therapy should help, I’m sure EMDR would be good, I imagine an EMDR specialist therapist would be able to tell you if they thought it would work for what you have experienced.

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