My Experience with EMDR Therapy

On this #wellnesswednesday, I was inspired by a goop podcast episode I listened to to write about EMDR therapy and my experience with it. I’ve talked about EMDR therapy on my social media just a bit and discussed it with people I’ve met in person, but I thought it might be good for me to write about what it is and how the experience has been for me while participating in it.

Q: What is EMDR therapy?

While most people are familiar with traditional talk therapy, EMDR therapy is sort of a combination of talk therapy in conjunction with physical bilatareral stimulation. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is focused on desensitizing anxiety by lowering the stress and reprocessing traumatic memories in our past. Bilateral just means back and forth, so left, right, left, right, etc. The bilateral stimulation is based on a model called Adaptive Information Processing, developed by a woman named Francine Shapiro, who had the theory that the brain stores normal and traumatic memories differently.

Trauma, which can be anything from being hit (by a human or by a car) to being made fun of as a child, can cause the brain to disconnect what we experience in the body and what/how the brain stores the memory in our neural pathways. The way the brain stores the traumatic memory doesn’t align with reality or the body, therefore the memory is never processed correctly, and can cause a flight or fight response (anxiety, depression, PTSD) in the body each time that the memory is thought of by an individual.

When you think about the traumatic memory and feel the feelings surrounding the memory in the body while also receiving bilateral stimulation, you’re able to better process and store the memory in your brain with less response, thus reducing anxiety and other symptoms. Hence, desensitizing and reprocessing.

Q: What is the point of EMDR therapy?

If you’re like most, we all have some sort of trauma. Like I stated above, it doesn’t have to be anything big - I’ve heard many therapists talk about trauma with a big T and a little T. It could be something more tangible like abuse, but it could also be something as simple as not receiving enough attention. We are all simply products of the way we were raised and will have certain quirks about us, but sometimes things that have happened in our lives will effect our daily lives.

EMDR therapy can be beneficial to those in which anxiety or habits they’ve formed are affecting their daily life or getting in the way of their goals (hello 🤚), or affecting the person that they want to be. For me personally, past relationship trauma, certain aspects about my childhood, and being jaded and pressured about career my entire life started to affect my daily habits like getting up, being in a healthy relationship now, and my work and potential being a good boss. That’s when I knew I needed to try something a bit different than just traditional talk therapy, which I started with my school in 2022.

Q: What are the types of bilateral stimulation?

As the name suggests, bilateral stimulation of the eyes is the most common method used. Through the use of a light bar or a wand, patients/clients will move their eyes back and forth while thinking and feeling their traumatic experience.

Bilateral stimulation can also be auditory, in which the client wears headphones and listens to a beep back and forth while thinking and feeling their traumatic experience.

What I have personally used and loved is tactile (touch) bilateral stimulation. Holding two tactile devices in your hands, they vibrate back and forth at similar speeds as you process the traumatic memory that is triggering for you. I’ve also heard of people self tapping on rested legs.

Let it be known that I am not a mental health therapist, but I am sure it is at the discretion of the therapist and their client on which form they choose and the effects that they have. I personally love the tactile stimulation, as I love to close my eyes and process memories.

Q: What has been your experience with EMDR therapy?

Ahhhh, here we go. At almost 30 years old, I have experienced a lot in my life. I’ve traveled to many countries, met many people, and been fortunate enough to have amazing experiences that have absolutely transformed me as a human being. When we look back on our lives, we all have memories, good and no so good. I really think it’s important that we acknowledge the things in our life that have had an impact on us - but memories are only “traumatic” if they are having an effect on how we function.

I asked my boyfriend the other day (still very weird to say boyfriend) what kind of trauma he had, and he said none. I replied, well, we all have trauma…. but you know, he’s right. Memories are really only traumatic if they are affecting us now. I am not one that wants to wallow in what I can’t control - I always try to be active in becoming the person that I want to be: confident, happy, and fulfilled.

2022 was ROUGH. With the divorce, opening a business, and heartbreak, I really spiraled back into some old patterns, so I knew it was time to try something else to help process the trauma. I’ve been hit by a car, emotionally and physically abused, and made fun of for a majority of my life. At the age of 23, I developed an eating disorder, which spurred back up in the fall of 2022. I hadn’t had an episode in over 2 years, but obviously certain traumas hadn’t fully been processed. I also became slightly depressed from the financial instability and so much change at one time.

Since starting EMDR therapy in November of 2022 (shoutout to the best parents ever for helping me and the best therapist), it’s been slow, but change is happening. People think that when they go to therapy for a month that things will be different, but this work takes time. I go every week for 90 minutes and have been for 6 months, and I feel like I’m just now able to externally see the benefits in my daily actions. Some people might say that it’s just time that healed me, but I don’t think I’d be in the same headspace now if I didn’t also go to therapy 1x/week.

Not only does it healing take time (and still continuing to do so), it’s also a lot of fucking work. When I first started it weekly, I scheduled my sessions before teaching yoga. I VERY quickly realized that that was not going to work. Doing EMDR therapy processing and feeling trauma for NINETY minutes straight leaves me feeling so physically and emotionally drained that I am basically useless afterwards for at least a few hours. I often would have to lie down and take a nap. We forget that 20% of energy in our body from glucose goes to our brain, even though it only takes up 2% of our bodyweight (unless you’re my boyfriend who thinks his brain is even bigger than that 😉).

Each week what I talk about changes, too. Sometimes I would have to process feelings from my ex’s. Sometimes I would have to talk about friendships that changed. Sometimes I would have to talk about my current relationships and my insecurities and sometimes I would have to talk about my childhood. Therapy normally starts with talking first, finding a common theme of how I’m feeling, such as not feeling enough, feelings of abandonment, of feelings of pressure from society to always be doing more; I then sit with the feeling while doing the bilateral stimulation, then discuss what came up for me afterwards.

Honestly, it was sort of crazy the first time I did it (which was about 1 month into therapy, by the way, because you ease into it). Memories from as young as 3 years old to memories I had forgotten about in the 6th grade popped into my brain once I was able to trace back to times when I first felt the way that I do with the traumatic experiences I have as an adult. I would try to remember a time when I felt the same way, and lo and behold, I would remember something I had forgotten happened. It doesn’t happen every time, but I feel as though I remember more about my childhood in the last 6 months than I ever have before.

Of course, remembering these memories is important, but it doesn’t cure the trauma now. EMDR therapy allows me to access these memories and understand myself better, but it’s my responsibility at almost 30 to change my actions. I can talk all day about why being Asain in the south made me feel insecure, but it’s my job now to take the action steps to becoming the person I want to be. My 30 year old self is no longer “run” by my 3 year old self, and I don’t know if I would have gotten down to the needs that needed to be met as my 3 year old self without the bilateral stimulation and talk therapy. Once I identified those needs, I had to work on meeting those needs myself instead of constantly trying to get them met by others, which is what most of us do.

Truly, EMDR is not for everyone. A lot of people get along great in their lives without the need to ever dive into their childhood. But if you feel as though you’re looping on old patterns, can’t get down to the root of something, or feeling as though there is a void in your life somewhere, this type of therapy might be something that is worth diving into. It’s important that you find the right therapist and support system along the way, schedule it in appropriately, and know what your goals are by partaking in this therapy.

I am so grateful that therapy is becoming more and more mainstream and talked about. We live in a world that demands so much of us, often a version of us that we’ve been trained to be and not the people we actually authentically are at our core. Doing so can cause anxiety, malalignment, and the development of patterns that don’t serve us in order to cope. It seems as though many people that I admire and people that I talk to now have a therapist, and they’re so much better able to function in their daily lives since they’ve been able to process emotions with a third party. It really is transformative. Again, it’s not for everyone, but that’s something that you have to decide for yourself.

I hope that by me sharing my experience and answering questions I’ve received from this form of therapy was helpful to you. I am so happy to be able to write this in May, since it’s Mental Health Awareness month. I read this morning on the Daily Stoic (I love Ryan Holiday) a quote that said “​We are all people struggling the same way - we are all people with the same capacities and dignity and worth. Let’s celebrate that. Come together over that.”

The more we talk about proper mental health the more accepted is. I am sending you SO MUCH LOVE as you become the best version of yourself that you can. Therapy is just ONE of the tools you can put in your tool belt, along with nutrition, mindfulness, meditation, movement, and community. We’re not meant to be secular - we’re meant to connect and always be evolving.

So I ask you, who do you want to be? And what tools can you use to help yourself get there?

LOVE YOU. Xx.

Resources:

- https://vancouveremdrtherapy.com/types-of-bilateral-stimulation-for-emdr-therapy/
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22641-emdr-therapy#:~:text=When%20you%20undergo%20EMDR%2C%20you,mental%20injury%20from%20that%20memory.
- https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-emdr-works-and-why-its-effective-treatment-for-trauma