Hello tappers. Healing is a shared journey, and sometimes reaching out is the hardest step. Below are a few recent posts that haven't received replies yet. If you have the emotional bandwidth today, please consider stopping by to offer support or share your insights. Also, don't forget to join our Discord!

• Vent vent (10 upvotes)
• Has anyone been able to get over social anxiety/distance in their journey? (9 upvotes)
• The journey continues (8 upvotes)
• New to EMDR (7 upvotes)
• How do you deal with healing? (Hypoaroused) (6 upvotes)
• Physical neglect, extreme toxic shame and freeze state (6 upvotes)
• Brainspotting - any peer reviewed studies (4 upvotes)
• dysregulation Nervous system traumatic (?)experience hyperarousal (4 upvotes)
• I feel like nothing matters (3 upvotes)
• First time doing EMDR! (3 upvotes)

This post is automatically generated. If you'd like the community to help out with your post, kindly comment on this thread with your post link. To our tappers and therapists: Thank you for holding space for each other.

Hi. I posted yesterday about the fees for emdr here in Sweden are incredibly high.
I’m curious to hear if anyone of you have done digital sessions with a therapist from abroad instead of in-person ones with someone in your own country? Is this even an option?

I feel like I might cheat the system in an unfair way if I would do something like that but it’s not financially possible for me to dive into what could potentially be longer term therapy with these high prices here in Sweden.

If you have any recommendations on therapists who do sessions from abroad, I’d love recommendations.

Thank you!

tw: contains mention of sexual assault!!

hi! I had my first full emdr session today and I was so shocked at some of the bizarre things my brain conjured up. I was sexually assaulted and so we focused on the first uncomfortable memory, throughout the session I was imagining beating the guy up, growing into a giant and breaking through the ceiling to pry him off me and yell to the city what happened, ended up throwing the guy off a bridge and my ex who supported me at the time flew off the bridge as a bird bc I let her go too?

throughout there were also themes of power, regaining control, shouting at people who didnt believe me when at the time in real life I was quiet, so I can see why things panned out the way they did. I just was not expecting the kind of cinematic movie my brain ended up dreaming? I have adhd and a very over active imagination so I assume that influenced it?

idk how normal this is or what is supposed to be conjured in these eye movement flashbacks but the brain is pretty cool and I hope my therapist didnt get freaked out by my imagination

Hi. I'm about to start my first rounds of EMDR.
Here in Sweden it's around 150euros for an hour. I aim to have one session each week.

I feel so immensely privileged to have my mother want to support my therapy, which means i'll only pay around 35euros per session.
I keep reading about people doing this for more than a year and it terrifies me to have my mother spend that much on me. It feels like I have to get better because of the financial aspect of it. I feel pressure because of it and I'm afraid it'll ruin my chances of it actually helping me.
I also don't know if i'm just looking for reasons not to do it, since i'm also afraid of opening pandoras box and re-living my traumas.

I’ve been doing EMDR for around 15 months now (on and off with IFS and talk therapy). I was widowed three years ago and had acute PTSD but after processing and preparing I am finally dealing with some serious childhood trauma I wasn’t really fully aware of until now. I am also 4 months in to a new relationship with a really safe, caring and lovely person. I am so happy, but since starting EMDR again I am really struggling to manage time alone / with him as well as juggling work. It feels like almost everything triggers me. Has anyone managed a new relationship while processing? I am hopeful things will get better as previously EMDR has been life changing for me (but I am in the trenches currently).

Any advice greatly received!

Hi everyone!

A while ago, I asked about EMDR for early childhood sexual abuse (around age 3) and attachment trauma, and received many encouraging responses.
I’m currently seeing a psychoanalytic psychotherapist I’ve known for years. She’s also EMDR-trained, although she rarely uses it nowadays. Our work mainly focuses on attachment wounds and triggers within our therapeutic relationship. It’s meaningful, but I still feel stuck, so we’ve decided to try EMDR.
A few things complicate this:
She only uses auditory stimulation (beeps through headphones), not eye movements.
She follows the Dutch EMDR protocol, which focuses on a specific memory or image.
I have very few memories of the abuse. Some images come to mind, but I’m unsure whether they’re real memories or something my mind has created.

My biggest struggle is accessing my emotions during therapy.
In everyday life, especially when I fear losing my partner, I can become extremely triggered and emotionally overwhelmed, sometimes even experiencing SI. I know these reactions are connected to my early trauma.
But during therapy, even when discussing the trauma, I feel strangely disconnected from those emotions. I understand everything intellectually, but can’t seem to access the actual feelings.
We’ve tried EMDR once, but I felt like nothing happened. I couldn’t even properly rate my distress (SUD), because I felt so emotionally disconnected.

I’d really appreciate practical experiences from people who’ve got numb during therapy.
How did you start? With present-day triggers, body sensations, imagined scenes, or did your therapist help create a narrative?
Did anyone experience this same emotional numbness during sessions? Did it improve after a few sessions, and what helped?
What did your sessions actually look like when working with trauma from such a young age?
Did changing the approach (eye movements instead of beeps, different targets, etc.) make a difference?