The big question here as you can see from my blog name called EMDRhippie is what is EMDR?
Known as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR – the easiest way that I can explain it from personal experience – is that it mimics hypnotism where you mildly black out while repeating a back-and-forth motion called bi-lateralization. May I caution the reader that it only mimics and technically is not hypnotism but helping the white matter neurons make connections to reprocess trauma with a positive idea. Essentially, healing the brain of disorders triggered by trauma. I have been in EMDR for the past two years, where I was previously on 14 meds with now – in a month with the titration dialing it down – 1!
- All thanks to my EMDR specialist, Ashley Bartlow, and PTSD specialist, Jacob Mohr at Elston Psychotherapy in Sterling, Illinois. Shout out for being awesome!
I am on the mixed bipolar/schizoaffective spectrum where my therapist says since it all derives from trauma that it is truly CPTSD-with hyperarousal(mania), hypoarousal(depression), and psychosis. I even smoked a little bit of pot in college, but not enough to trigger schizoaffective as psychosis from pot only lasts 6 months max and I have been sober 3-4 years. I suffered from multiple rapes in college while psychotic and with my hallucinations starting at 15, I was very severe when the rapes happened. I have numerous other forms of trauma, but don’t need to spill my guts on everything.
-Sorry for the choppiness in writing, I am trying to be concise in writing with my story.
EMDR is one of the hardest events that I have been through. I almost ended up on disability, lost my job as an electrical engineer, and was homeless because of how hard EMDR is to go through. I get flashbacks for days after each session with the norm being one day per patient, get a spike in symptoms temporarily, and get very sleepy for several days afterwards. Last week, I slept the whole next day practically. The following week, I feel more stable and get off more meds.
However, psychiatry isn’t easy and getting off meds wasn’t easy as one med may balance another causing symptoms upon removing one, which in my case with Abilify severe mania when I came off my Haldol partially.
As for my next post, please keep me up-to-date on your stories with EMDR. I will be talking about my experiences with hyperphrenia and superphrenia, where I exhibit higher intelligence while manic and psychotic especially in the domains of creativity.
Lastly, I am looking to write articles for income in any topic area that you think suits me. Look me up on LinkedIn as Gray Black or Alexia Risley. I just published a book called Gray Black’s Poetic Portrait available on Amazon through USA Book Publishing and one coming out called Man or Machine? by Gray Black.
EMDRhippie 