The following comment came to me via email via a kind soul. I pass it on for others benefit anonymously...
With my first Christian counsellor for DID/SRA/TBMC, she advised me not to go for EMDR because she thought it would retraumatise me. I wasn't suggesting or planning to do it, she just put it out there.
That advice was given in the early stage of counselling and I don't know if it would be the same for everyone. ...Now I know that I have more extensive neurological changes than almost any survivor I know, and these have a very debilitating effect on me.... So, possibly it is because of this poor condition I was in that she advised against EMDR, and that survivors in a more stable condition could benefit from EMDR. I wouldn't be surprised if that were so.
I'd like to add that this was suggested despite the fact that some EMDR practitioners have acquired skills in avoiding retraumatising DID survivors.
The Body Keeps the Score is an excellent book by Bessel Van der Kolk. He describes how the body is the key to healing the mind, not the other way around, and how EMDR heals about 80% of PTSD trauma. I have used it successfully for arachnophobia. Another excellent therapy, which can be done without a third party, is irest yoga nidra, which has apparently helped human trafficking victims recover and fully integrate. https://www.irest.org/. Have you heard of Laura Worley? A survivor herself, who was HRC's S slave. She started revealing her story after Pizzagate. She hosted the Worldwide Transformational Summit in 2011, where I found her, though she never mentioned her System background at the time. She specialises in healing from trauma based mind control, releasing demons from every possible crevice they can be attached to, in Jesus name. https://laurajworley.com/author-about/. She uses a form of EFT tapping for integration. A recent interview. https://rumble.com/v2jt6xi-nwo-programs-breaking-free-from-mk-ultra-mind-control-and-healing-laura-wor.html. She warns about the NWO programming installed in millions wwide and states there are 7 stages to go through before theses 'soldiers' will be triggered to start acting. The Biden character is a vital part of the trigger which is why they pretend he is still alive instead of installing a new puppet.
Thanks for your info Tricia. I will check those out. I have heard the name Laura Worley but I rarely watch videos, due to time. I will try and watch thanks.
You're welcome Cathy. Her story is truly incredible. Experimented on from birth, forced breeding for rituals, survived electrocution, a week long ritual and being HRC personal slave but has totally healed and if anyone needs her help, they can contact her via her website.
I do not have that kind of PTSD, but a different kind. I am doing EMDR. It is a hard experience to even know that you're going to tap into the feelings in order to work on them through EMDR. You pretty much know that it is not a fun place to go, but life is not so great when it can jump out at your any minute.
I don't know whether there is any way to neutralize it without tapping into it to some degree. In Somatic Experiencing, there is a process to "titrate" in which you approach the stuff more by way of your physical experience of the trauma, and you try to find the manageable edge and then pendulate, move back and forth on that edge like a pendulum. You are building the capacity to regulate yourself by addressing the physical manifestations. You see where you feel (or don't feel) in your body, and you practice going in and out.
I am a horsey person, and you can do this with animals even! You practice helping them move their energy back and forth to help them learn to self regulate and be able to manage things that might stress or trigger them. Of course, with all of this it takes a lot of sensitivity to explore the edge.
Pema Chodron describes a similar process for when you're going to that trigger place. She says to focus on any sense: seeing, hearing, sensation, etc. Focus on what you, say, see right now. Look at details. Notice the details. This is a physical anchor (my words) to where you actually are now. So, you're being drawn to your trauma response, but you're using your access to the real moment now (physical sensation and detail) to ground yourself. "grounding" is a very physical concept. In Somatic Experiencing you might see things like putting your feet on the ground, because it is a physical sensation of your feet being on the ground that means something.
My therapist is also bringing me into "tapping." I am being encouraged to take my good experiences and do bilateral tapping to set those states into my body. This might be tapping each hand on the opposite arm, one and then the other, back and forth. In a difficult moment, you can access this resource that you've given yourself by tapping to invoke that feeling that you've literally set into your own body.
This is new to me, but I also imagine that you have to be sure that the tapping "taps" into your good experience and feeling, and that you don't start tapping when triggered more and end up anchoring the bad feelings. For example, imagine if every time you're triggered you do a bilateral tapping. Then you would be setting the bad feeling and invoke that nasty stuff when you tap. Not good.
Tapping, though, is another pathway through the physical, and you can add that bilateral element. Some people who want to help themselves to remember to access a physical connection to the here and now when triggered might wear a rubber band or some other device. So, when you notice you're connecting to trauma stuff, you snap the rubber band, or rub the rock in your pocket, or maybe you have a necklace meant to be touched or smelled or something. Then you have a pathway through the physical out, and you're less likely to be all alone in your triggered flashback.
I really like imaginative symbols a resource. I really like something I can imagine that I can set as a resource. So, one that is strong for me is a tree. I imagine the tree strong and tall and rooted deep. I imagine all of these great qualities and even imagine the physical sensations. I stand like a tree with a wide stance. All of it. I tap it into my body as a resource. I might even have a tree pendant, or maybe tactile piece of driftwood, to give additional access to it. When I'm being invited into my trigger, I can access this tree in a variety of ways to ground me and accompany me and tether me to a space outside of the trauma which can also travel with me to protect and help me in the trauma.
I also think you can add actions and words onto these resources. Once when I was stuck, I drew a circle around myself and simply physically stepped out of the circle and literally made a statement that I was stepping out. It was too hard to just be done with the bad stuff, so I created an immediate and simple way to feel myself stepping out. I figure anything you do, no matter how ridiculously simple and spare, is a step to where you need to go with this stuff.
I am also a dancer, so I dance a prayer and use the dance to move it and transform it. Any medium will do. I have worked with children with big feelings (as we would call them), and we would bring in "moosh", in good times or bad, to move the energy. Moosh is anything malleable and physical that you can ever yourself onto or into and affect it and change its form. Play dough, ripping paper or cloth, throwing balls, pillow punching,.... You can practice moving energy when things are going just fine, so you become practiced and capable to shape your energy by shaping with physicality.
I think anyone who deals with this stuff finds their creativity really reveals some good tools.
Kristine Speer has a bunch of EMDR related videos on her channel and many of them are good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DALbwI7m1vM as it doesn't need any equipment and it's hands-off.
The following comment came to me via email via a kind soul. I pass it on for others benefit anonymously...
With my first Christian counsellor for DID/SRA/TBMC, she advised me not to go for EMDR because she thought it would retraumatise me. I wasn't suggesting or planning to do it, she just put it out there.
That advice was given in the early stage of counselling and I don't know if it would be the same for everyone. ...Now I know that I have more extensive neurological changes than almost any survivor I know, and these have a very debilitating effect on me.... So, possibly it is because of this poor condition I was in that she advised against EMDR, and that survivors in a more stable condition could benefit from EMDR. I wouldn't be surprised if that were so.
I'd like to add that this was suggested despite the fact that some EMDR practitioners have acquired skills in avoiding retraumatising DID survivors.
Anyway, I wanted to flag that up.
The Body Keeps the Score is an excellent book by Bessel Van der Kolk. He describes how the body is the key to healing the mind, not the other way around, and how EMDR heals about 80% of PTSD trauma. I have used it successfully for arachnophobia. Another excellent therapy, which can be done without a third party, is irest yoga nidra, which has apparently helped human trafficking victims recover and fully integrate. https://www.irest.org/. Have you heard of Laura Worley? A survivor herself, who was HRC's S slave. She started revealing her story after Pizzagate. She hosted the Worldwide Transformational Summit in 2011, where I found her, though she never mentioned her System background at the time. She specialises in healing from trauma based mind control, releasing demons from every possible crevice they can be attached to, in Jesus name. https://laurajworley.com/author-about/. She uses a form of EFT tapping for integration. A recent interview. https://rumble.com/v2jt6xi-nwo-programs-breaking-free-from-mk-ultra-mind-control-and-healing-laura-wor.html. She warns about the NWO programming installed in millions wwide and states there are 7 stages to go through before theses 'soldiers' will be triggered to start acting. The Biden character is a vital part of the trigger which is why they pretend he is still alive instead of installing a new puppet.
Thanks for your info Tricia. I will check those out. I have heard the name Laura Worley but I rarely watch videos, due to time. I will try and watch thanks.
You're welcome Cathy. Her story is truly incredible. Experimented on from birth, forced breeding for rituals, survived electrocution, a week long ritual and being HRC personal slave but has totally healed and if anyone needs her help, they can contact her via her website.
I do not have that kind of PTSD, but a different kind. I am doing EMDR. It is a hard experience to even know that you're going to tap into the feelings in order to work on them through EMDR. You pretty much know that it is not a fun place to go, but life is not so great when it can jump out at your any minute.
I don't know whether there is any way to neutralize it without tapping into it to some degree. In Somatic Experiencing, there is a process to "titrate" in which you approach the stuff more by way of your physical experience of the trauma, and you try to find the manageable edge and then pendulate, move back and forth on that edge like a pendulum. You are building the capacity to regulate yourself by addressing the physical manifestations. You see where you feel (or don't feel) in your body, and you practice going in and out.
I am a horsey person, and you can do this with animals even! You practice helping them move their energy back and forth to help them learn to self regulate and be able to manage things that might stress or trigger them. Of course, with all of this it takes a lot of sensitivity to explore the edge.
Pema Chodron describes a similar process for when you're going to that trigger place. She says to focus on any sense: seeing, hearing, sensation, etc. Focus on what you, say, see right now. Look at details. Notice the details. This is a physical anchor (my words) to where you actually are now. So, you're being drawn to your trauma response, but you're using your access to the real moment now (physical sensation and detail) to ground yourself. "grounding" is a very physical concept. In Somatic Experiencing you might see things like putting your feet on the ground, because it is a physical sensation of your feet being on the ground that means something.
My therapist is also bringing me into "tapping." I am being encouraged to take my good experiences and do bilateral tapping to set those states into my body. This might be tapping each hand on the opposite arm, one and then the other, back and forth. In a difficult moment, you can access this resource that you've given yourself by tapping to invoke that feeling that you've literally set into your own body.
This is new to me, but I also imagine that you have to be sure that the tapping "taps" into your good experience and feeling, and that you don't start tapping when triggered more and end up anchoring the bad feelings. For example, imagine if every time you're triggered you do a bilateral tapping. Then you would be setting the bad feeling and invoke that nasty stuff when you tap. Not good.
Tapping, though, is another pathway through the physical, and you can add that bilateral element. Some people who want to help themselves to remember to access a physical connection to the here and now when triggered might wear a rubber band or some other device. So, when you notice you're connecting to trauma stuff, you snap the rubber band, or rub the rock in your pocket, or maybe you have a necklace meant to be touched or smelled or something. Then you have a pathway through the physical out, and you're less likely to be all alone in your triggered flashback.
I really like imaginative symbols a resource. I really like something I can imagine that I can set as a resource. So, one that is strong for me is a tree. I imagine the tree strong and tall and rooted deep. I imagine all of these great qualities and even imagine the physical sensations. I stand like a tree with a wide stance. All of it. I tap it into my body as a resource. I might even have a tree pendant, or maybe tactile piece of driftwood, to give additional access to it. When I'm being invited into my trigger, I can access this tree in a variety of ways to ground me and accompany me and tether me to a space outside of the trauma which can also travel with me to protect and help me in the trauma.
I also think you can add actions and words onto these resources. Once when I was stuck, I drew a circle around myself and simply physically stepped out of the circle and literally made a statement that I was stepping out. It was too hard to just be done with the bad stuff, so I created an immediate and simple way to feel myself stepping out. I figure anything you do, no matter how ridiculously simple and spare, is a step to where you need to go with this stuff.
I am also a dancer, so I dance a prayer and use the dance to move it and transform it. Any medium will do. I have worked with children with big feelings (as we would call them), and we would bring in "moosh", in good times or bad, to move the energy. Moosh is anything malleable and physical that you can ever yourself onto or into and affect it and change its form. Play dough, ripping paper or cloth, throwing balls, pillow punching,.... You can practice moving energy when things are going just fine, so you become practiced and capable to shape your energy by shaping with physicality.
I think anyone who deals with this stuff finds their creativity really reveals some good tools.
Thanks for your comment, useful. Have you a good link to Pema Chodron or is it a book?
Kristine Speer has a bunch of EMDR related videos on her channel and many of them are good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DALbwI7m1vM as it doesn't need any equipment and it's hands-off.