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Hi all,

I just have to share, the next session with my therapist is not for another week... For a while I've been struggling with emotional flashbacks during stressful moments. I thought it was the stress itself, and it probably is, but I think I've discovered another trigger: being alone. It sounds so simple, but I think I have separation anxiety. With the thought of that, and while doing some research, it's like pieces falling together.

Now I know another big cause of my problems, I can do something about it. Hooray! 

Thanks for your response @sanmagic7! I am still making progress indeed, so I've decided to keep on doing EMDR every two weeks. Apparently my T is in inter- and supervision with other professionals, so that reassures me. The last few weeks/months we've been taking it slow and the heavy flashbacks seem to have gone to the background again. Upward and onward 

hi, nssg,

i am an emdr therapist, so i know a bit about the process.  my guess would be that as long as you're making progress, it's doing well for you.  as far as emdr deteriorating symptoms, i'm not sure about that because i haven't had that experience.  if i were you, i'd talk to my t about those concerns.  it may be that some core stuff is coming up, which can be more difficult for the mind to process, or that what you're working on needs to slow down a bit because you're having a harder time adjusting to changes.

letting your t know about this could give him/her a heads up that something else is going on besides the type of processing you've experienced in the past, and s/he can make adjustments in your approach accordingly.  best to you with this.  i'd be interested to know what becomes of it, if you'd care to share.   

Hi all,

I started treatment with EMDR 2.5 years ago, and I have an EMDR session of 1.5h every two weeks. The other weeks in between I have a normal session of 45min. I've made a lot of progress in those 2.5 years, but the last months my PTSD had gotten a lot worse. Is it possible that EMDR deteriorates PTSD symptoms? Does anyone else have experience with EMDR treatment of multiple years?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the welcoming and reactions :-)

I have been doing some research and it seems that what I'm experiencing are indeed EFs. Realizing this was a big relief, since I now know that what happens still has to do with the past, and does not directly relates to what happens in the present. Perhaps hard to explain, but for me it feels that way.

In the next weeks I have appointments with my therapists and psychiatrist, so hopefully it will become clearer for me what to do with work.

I was not in a good place when posting this, but now things are looking a bit better again!

Long story short: over 2 years of EMDR therapy (overall almost 15 years of therapy), started working again (volunteer work) half a year ago. Whenever I encounter stress at work, it puts me back in the past.  I go into some kind of state where I can't tell the difference between then and now and feel a lot of anxiety and despair. It always takes me a while to come back to my life right now. At this point I don't know what to do anymore: keep on working and hoping it gets better, that I will adjust, or quit working so my days don't have these major downs. I want to do what it takes to recover, but I don't know what the best option is.