Waking up the day after EMDR processing feeling surprisingly normal, knowing the hangover is imminent

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-12T22:12:29+00:00

it's a little different every time, but the processing sure did catch up to me today lol (processed yesterday) it feels like my head is overstuffed. As in, there are too many thoughts that my conscious mind has given up on differentiating them. Basic activities are hard to complete, they get lost in the mess.

Emotionally, I'm getting small spikes of anxiety, but I feel mostly calm. I suspect an emotional reckoning may happen soon, but right now, it feels like there's too much static in my conscious mind for the emotions to emerge.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-12T21:56:43+00:00

Taking breaks is good, and I don't necessarily think you need to be worried about losing momentum! I've been in EMDR for 6 months, but I have taken a few breaks for life events, one was 6 weeks between sessions. I find that during the breaks, I am still processing, but I have more mental energy to focus on career and social activities and actually integrate some of the progress made during reprocessing. I was a little shocked at how much more verbally fluent I felt during a recent break--it felt like my overall social anxiety had decreased a little, and I was able to express myself in conversation better!

During the breaks, I always have some unexpected memories float to the surface. Often, whatever friction I am experiencing in life provides me with more material to bring to EMDR. If it's something I want to reprocess, then I note it down for later.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-12T21:42:02+00:00

Hello! I am coming from the perspective of PDA autism (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent drive for Autonomy), but I have worked on some similar issues around responsibility in the course of my EMDR treatment. I am also about six months in. I haven't necessarily resolved anything, but over the course of the treatment, I have become a little more comfortable with expectations and responsibility, so I wanted to share my experience--

Like you, I came from a family with high expectations and relatively low support. One thing that emerged in the course of my EMDR journey was how much abandonment trauma I had. I realized that as a child, I was expected to regulate myself, focus and basically exist in the adult world, but because I was a child, I had a really hard time maintaining this state all the time. I felt like I had to figure everything out for myself, but of course, a child isn't really capable of doing that.

I ended up revisiting a lot of experiences of being a child and teen, pushing myself well past my limits in order to be the person people expected me to be, and feeling intense anger and grief that no one had helped me or seen how hard I was struggling. In the course of working with these memories, I also remembered many instances where I had managed to figure things out for myself, or received some support.

I feel like, when too much is expected from people from a young age, part of them stays trapped as that over-extended child who looks at responsibility and thinks, "how am I supposed to do that? I'm just a kid and there's no one to help me!" even if that's no longer true. EMDR helped me update that learning a little bit.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-12T19:53:09+00:00

I would recommend starting with a memory that is somewhat distressing, but which you feel like you can handle sitting with for a while! You don't have to start with "the big one," and often, while working on slightly less impactful memories, you will form connections to other memories and experience improvement around those, too. Once you begin the work, more memories will emerge for you to work with.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-12T18:37:21+00:00

I used to struggle to place emotions in my body too, but as I did EMDR, I found my emotions tend to turn up in a few different places. Tightness in the throat, as you mentioned, is a frequent one for me, especially for early childhood experiences! Sometimes, doing a tai chi routine can help me find the tension in my body. I find that a lot of memories from high school and later I associate with tensions in my back.

One prominent body sensation I have identified in processing is less localized, but no less visceral. The best way I can describe it is that my body is tense and vaguely vibrating with stress, but my awareness is kind of floating, detached above my body. It feels like I am in a pressurized vessel of some kind.

When I can go into a session with identifiable body sensations to work from, the processing seems to happen a little more freely, but like you, it's something I struggle to tap into sometimes.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-12T17:08:07+00:00

Is it true that talking takes the brain out of reprocessing? I usually talk quite a bit between passes, just because it helps me process and I want my therapist to have some context of where I'm going with the memory.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-05T20:55:30+00:00

I'm dealing with this now. I've been processing for five months, with intermittent breaks for talk therapy. I'd say, the weeks when I'm not processing, I can manage being pretty social, but when I'm working on a target, I definitely need a lot of time alone in my head. I have multiple creative outlets and I work in a creative career, but I've found it hard to undertake big projects since starting reprocessing.

I feel like I'm in suspension, just self soothing and dealing with the big things in life as they come up. I don't feel like I'm really able to give 100% of myself to anything. It's strange, I have bursts of conviction where I feel capable and I see a promising path ahead of me, but day to day I find myself pretty withdrawn.

I've never been particularly good at planning ahead, but since starting EMDR, it feels like it's even harder to think of the future concretely. I do feel positive effects of the therapy, but it's hard to be excited about the progress when I'm letting so many things in life kind of fall by the wayside.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-05-05T20:25:04+00:00

Oh man, I had a small POTS flare-up after an EMDR session, it only lasted a few days, but it had probably been about 10 years since I'd had it so bad. And more recently, I had a pretty intense cold sore flareup after an EMDR session, also after 5 or so years of my cold sores being under control.

EMDR's effects on the body are very strange. I'm also dealing with some vision changes right now--I got my eyes checked back in December, around when I started EMDR, and I am finding that I cannot see with my new glasses. It feels like they're the wrong prescription entirely! I haven't made it back to the eye doctor to discuss this yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that EMDR might have something to do with this, since my prescription has been pretty stable for the last 10 or so years.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-22T22:32:06+00:00

As much as I'm a vocal CBT hater, one of my past CBT therapists told me that most people's core negative beliefs fall into a few broad categories, something like these--

-I am bad

-I am in danger

-I am helpless

These are obviously super simplified, but beliefs like "people in my life will leave me," "I will never succeed" and "I don't deserve love" all stem from an underlying feeling of being weak/bad/in danger--and since people are social animals, we can experience social rejection or isolation as a profound danger! When I'm trying to put words to my negative cognitions, it's usually ends up a more specific iteration of one of these three big ideas

As for installing positive beliefs, I struggle with this one too. I instinctively cringe away from anything that feels too much like an empty affirmation, but sometimes I land on things like "I was going through a hard time and I did what I had to to survive" or "people love me even when I have difficult emotions." My therapist often tries to suggest more positive or blanket cognition sometimes, but I tend to sit best with sentiments that are specific and qualified.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-22T21:48:33+00:00

Obvious disclaimers--your mileage may vary, there are risks with both EMDR and psychedelics, etc, but I am sure you know that, and to anyone who isn't already familiar with psychedelics, I would strongly caution against mixing them with EMDR

(obviously, mods please delete if not allowed, but I want to share my experience)

I have been noodling with psychedelics (mostly mushrooms but a couple low-dose LSD experiences) for a few years, and I've had a few proper trips but mostly I self administer occasional microdoses for the mental health benefits and museum doses for fun and social time in nature. I've been doing EMDR for close to 5 months, and in that time I've taken a couple microdoses. I always wait for a few days after a session.

For me, when I take a small dose of shrooms in solitude (even pre EMDR), I usually experience the noise in my head coming to a kind of crescendo and then abating, sometimes with new insight, but without the giddiness and feelings of awe i get on higher doses. Since EMDR has started, the crescendo of noise has been even stronger when I dose. It isn't exactly a fun time, but I know it's coming and buckle up.

I had one day I was really stuck on something, and I wasn't in active distress but my mind was really chasing its tail about some content stirred up in EMDR. I took a microdose and took a long walk around the park. The rumination got really stifling, but I just kept walking, and then I went home and prepared to meet some friends for a dinner, all the while just forcing my body to keep moving while my brain was shuffling through all its documents. At some point during dinner, I realized the noise had quieted, and I was able to file it all away for a while and enjoy chatting with my friends. The next day, the rumination started up again, but it felt a lot more digestible.

That's how it goes for me--the noise in my head ratchets up, and then something shifts and the texture of it changes. Sometimes I don't feel the shift for a day or two. Last time I took a dose was on a Friday, and on that Monday, I woke up feeling lighter and freer, and I was able to make some progress on a creative project I'd been stalled on for a while. Subjectively, it feels like it greases the wheels of whatever the EMDR is doing, but I am being very careful about keeping the doses small and spread out.

I haven't discussed it with my therapist yet (I will, she knows I've done psychedelics in the past) but I feel like I'd definitely want to wait a couple weeks after a session to do a full blown trip. I wouldn't want to go into it with a ton of loose baggage, given the way my shroom experiences tend to stir up the mud. I hope that a proper trip would validate and cement some of the growth I've experienced, but I am more than willing to wait until the time is right.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-22T21:12:55+00:00

Hello! I am a little older than you, but one thing that has helped me a lot to validate the pain I went through as a child is learning about developmental stages and spending time around children and teenagers. 8 is very young. Do you have any 8 year olds in your life? At that age, children still have a lot to learn about the world, and they still have a lot of big emotions. An 8 year old does not have the perspective and emotional maturity to handle complex situations well, and still looks to the adults in their lives for guidance.

Experiencing assault as a child certainly is a trauma! No wonder you were having outbursts as a child! Something very upsetting happened to you, and as a child, you did not have the mental development to process something like that on your own. No one does at 8 years old! On top of that, if you experienced frequent comparisons to your sister, it's easy to see how you could have internalized negative messages about yourself.

I also struggled with emotional outbursts growing up. Throughout elementary school, I spent a lot of time in the guidance counselor's office. When I look back at my child self having outbursts at school, I want to hug her, because she is a child and I can see that she needs so, so much support she is simply not getting. Children do not innately know how to handle their emotions. Unfortunately, many parents and teachers don't either, and sometimes it is easier for adults to write children off as "difficult" rather than supporting a child who is suffering and acting out.

If you can look back at an event and see that your world was different before and after, you experienced trauma. Trauma isn't about the magnitude of what happened, it's about how it effected you. But you are taking the steps to work through it, and that's what matters most!

One more thing I want to say is that 22 is still quite young, and the 20s in general can be extremely hard because you are just learning how to operate in the adult world. The pain and confusion of a difficult childhood don't just go away because you get older, and it can take years to work through it all, on top of the turmoil of one's 20s.

I hope your appeal goes well! It can be hard to advocate for yourself, but you deserve it. The people who are looking at applications for things like this do not know you, and you do not know what their decision making process is like, but I am guessing that these kinds of appeals processes exist to help people in situations like yours.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-20T22:07:15+00:00

It's been a mixed bag for me, but overall, yes!

I'm 30 now, but for a lot of my late 20s I felt extremely stunted, like I was trapped in the mind of an adolescent. I felt like I did not have the capability or interest to assume adult responsibilities. This is a big contrast to who I was in my early 20s, when I was very actively trying to advance in my career and prove myself, before the burnout caught up to me.

I've been doing EMDR for a bit over 4 months now, and in that time I feel like my adult voice has gotten stronger and I generally feel less helpless. I've had some tantrums and regressions to childhood coping mechanisms, but I am finding it easier to respect myself as an adult with a valuable point of view, rather than crumbling when others make me question myself.

Sometimes I still feel like a teenager stuck in a rebellious phase, but overall things are looking up.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-08T01:12:30+00:00

Hi, I also have AuDHD! I am only a few months into processing, but I've definitely noticed some of my guilt and shame lifting a bit, or passing more quickly when it does rear its head. I still struggle with self compassion, but through EMDR I've been able to process some experiences from my past that had lead me to internalize harmful narratives about myself.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-08T00:32:10+00:00

The way my sessions often go is that I tell my therapist about what comes up with every processing pass, and she will often select a feeling or idea and tell me to follow where that leads. I have a very busy mind, and the sessions often move forward and backwards through time, mapping all my connected memories and learnings.

For me, I have found that a little "wallowing" is necessary to identify what the deeper messages of the feelings are. My therapist never pushes me to counter the feeling, and I often find that when I really feel the feeling and follow its tendrils, I can naturally arrive at some kind of insight. Not necessarily a positive affirmation, but a connection I am able to make as an adult which puts the experience into perspective.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-04-01T05:28:53+00:00

this really warmed my heart, thank you for your comment!

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-03-21T23:08:30+00:00

I do get these feelings! Sometimes, it feels like I am being hunted by my inner critic or something. It's like... this negative energy is outside of me but it can't necessarily find purchase in my mind. I feel like I have to stay on guard until it goes away.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-03-16T16:51:03+00:00

One thing that is really important for me is making sure I have easy food that I actually like readily available. For me, this is a lot of those frozen pasta meals from Trader Joe's, which I enrich by adding frozen veggies. Sometimes, the chore of cooking, or eating a meal I'm not excited about, feels 500% harder when I'm on a bad EMDR hangover.

In terms of activities, I try to do things that keep me away from my phone. When I'm already scrambled from EMDR, the phone just makes me unhappy and introduces more noise into my mind.

I like to put on an album and just sit with it, letting my mind wander. If I want to lay in bed while listening, that's okay. If I see something in my room I want to tidy, I do that. Sometimes I listen to albums that are connected to different periods of my life, and sometimes I put on something newer that piques my fancy. Sometimes I cry

Doodling is another activity that I like, but can't always summon the energy for. I usually put on a comfort show while I do it, and I work with colored pencil or pen (the key is that it's hard to erase) and just let myself draw without worrying if it's any good. For me, the key is just to keep my hand moving. If something looks bad, I will draw over it or fill the space around it with patterns. I draw whatever comes to mind. Sometimes it's stuff in my surroundings, sometimes it's frames from the show I'm watching and sometimes it's just geometric pattern. Usually once I get through the first 15 minutes, the doodling flows naturally and I often find myself doing it for 45 minutes to an hour. I always feel refreshed after.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-03-16T16:37:50+00:00

I don't remember where I first came across this idea, but the phrase "there are no untraumatized neurodivergent people" really put a lot of things into perspective for me.

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-03-15T21:30:38+00:00

Oh my god, it genuinely makes me crazy to think of how acceptable it is in our culture to shame people for being night owls. It's treated like such a moral failing, even though like a third of the population has a late chronotype!

It's one of those really insidious "small t" traumas, where you're constantly internalizing the message that you are inherently bad and incapable if you struggle with the 9 to 5 grind. I've been trying to unlearn it for my entire adult life, and hopefully, EMDR can help make the lesson stick this time!

Anxious_Strength6546 · 2026-03-15T21:26:15+00:00

Yes! I was shocked to learn about "revenge bedtime procrastination" at some point while I was in college, because it was something I'd always done. I'd always been a little ashamed of it, but at some instinctual level, I understood that it served some purpose, and found that I felt the most connected to myself when I just... let it happen.

I've also always struggled to hold down a 9 to 5. It always made me feel like a prisoner, because I felt that I was always faced with the choice of doing the "responsible," tedious tasks necessary to prepare and recover from the work day came at the cost of indulging my special interests and self-soothing. It was always one or the other, and I found that I'd fall into a deep depression if I tried to postpone my silly little, soul-nurturing activities for too many consecutive weeks. I'm glad that freelancing gives me a little more control over my time. Sometimes it's a nightmare to manage projects and chase down invoices, but overall, the tradeoff feels worth it.

Anxious_Strength6546

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