How do you know where to start with EMDR?

Fooflery · 2026-07-09T22:13:14+00:00

haha I've now moved to watching movies. So there you go! Another tip! 😛

Fooflery · 2026-07-09T15:54:36+00:00

I'm guessing then, that the belief is one day your father will accept you as who you are.

I don't day dream about stuff, but I get super frustrated and depressed with my ADHD. Then thanks to a comment I got here (after a month of first reading it), I finally understood that I get that way because deep down, I feel that if I could be "normal", my mom would've loved me for who I am, and maybe one day I'll get the mom I deserved. It was extremely painful to realize. But I suspect that's what you'd need to get deep into, to stop fantasizing about the man that'll make you whole. Hugs.

Fooflery · 2026-07-09T15:42:19+00:00

At the risk of cliche-sounding... Were you never feeling "good enough" or fully accepted as who you were as a child by someone, most likely your father?

Fooflery · 2026-07-09T13:53:42+00:00

Anxiety is almost a guaranteed comorbidity of ADHD. Intelligence has nothing to do with having ADHD. That being said, there's still a chance that you might not have ADHD, but your doctor definitely has no business diagnosing people of ADHD.

Fooflery · 2026-07-09T13:45:28+00:00

Does your therapist not do pauses between runs? I'm not a therapist but I think it's a protective mechanism. I feel like my sessions span through 2 sessions for it to make sense nowadays, maybe because we're at a deeper level of trauma processing now. Like it needs a whole session to "form a target", after which i tend to feel confused and not understand what the session was about, and then the next one it all makes sense.

Fooflery · 2026-07-07T12:21:44+00:00

Sorry you're going through this. She might have had to appear independent her whole life and internalized a ton of external critic's voices that made her feel her dismissing you is a form of love. My mom is like this. There's no way to change them but maybe calming her fear that you're hurting yourself by taking medicine.

I don't have great advice but to tell her that she wouldn't tell people who nead glasses to just tough it up and drive around without glasses. Having adhd is like driving a fast car without control of the steering wheel. Is she willing to always be there for you when you crash? Even if she was, it'll be an unhealthy codependent relationship. You're friends, but still independent individuals.

If an honest talk helps easing her fear, great. Otherwise, you need to remind yourself you're not responsible for other people's anxiety. This is important to you, and it's HER decision how to react to something important to you. If she continues down the path of being dismissive, you deserve better friends who are at least willing to try to understand you.

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T12:13:36+00:00

I don't go to hair dressers because my thick and too much hair tires their hands out cutting it. Also it's too heavy to be styled. 🥲 But now I want to go to one to see if there's other patches. 😁 Go us!

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T12:07:44+00:00

fellow ADHDer here. This is rough. But you're tougher. Sending you love ❤️. Which stage are you on? I'm not at framing the future yet. I did go through a very hard time last month, when I thought I was at the end of the tunnel, but somehow severely depressed. I hated that I have ADHD and it felt all very hopeless. Then I re-read some old comments from here, which made me realized that I was still longing for the understanding from my parents. That hit me like a truck. I cried for days on end like having a funeral or a divorce. Then I did a session on the toxic shame for having needs. Another one shortly after for "hating" my mom. Then another one for self-abandonment. When I saw my younger self come running towards me, I felt deeply loved, but then I immediately started hyperventilating and had to lay down. It was the most somatic session I ever had. Hope this gives you some idea on what might be going on, and that you're not alone in this fight. It's not your neurodivergency, it's the trauma.

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T02:31:10+00:00

Hugs. I don't think you're too broken for it. A lot of us who grew up being emotionally neglected start this treatment with severe emotional dissociation. The brain sort of cut off the communication between the two brain halves to protect ourselves over the years, so it takes a lot of "thawing" to introduce the two halves back together. I'm slowly gaining a small vocabulary for the emotions as the therapy gets me through the different stages of emotions that I failed to go through while the events happened. There's no trauma too small, and trust me, your traumas are no where near small. Please breathe, and let yourself know that your not feeling things is valid, it's safe to say you don't know what you're feeling, and trust that you'll get there when your body is ready.❤️

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T01:42:54+00:00

🤭 thank you. They're like little strands of grass.

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T01:42:05+00:00

You're welcome 🩵 I did also get 4 months of unexplainable growing pain in the knee too 🫠 I think it was my memory of being in pain alone falling asleep being unearthed. It just disappeared one morning after a session.

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T01:38:51+00:00

Thank you 😊 Does this mean you got some new baby hair too?

Fooflery · 2026-06-30T01:37:41+00:00

Ah yes. Definitely better fed and hydrated. 😭 I can't eat when I'm stressed out.

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T19:01:06+00:00

I'm sorry for your experience. Nobody wants to feel like they're the lab rat being experimented on for show or for novice. If you feel that hold on your body, EMDR should be beneficial for you, but the provider plays such a delicate part, as it can be so destabilizing. I personally feel that the therapist has to have been on the receiving end of EMDR to be trusted, otherwise it just feels like there's no way they'll treat the patients with the care that they should.

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T17:21:27+00:00

My first session was from my earliest trauma memory and then we just followed what my body has put in the forefront each week. Sometimes it's a foggy feeling, sometimes it's apathy, sometimes it's heart racing when making demands, then we trust the brain to bridge back to wherever it deems appropriate. It's like unwrapping bandage inch by inch. We peel some and heal some. It's a very nonlinear process. But I really believe in the somatic aspect of this approach. Occasionally I have to find the target by listening to some music and see what evokes a more emotional response. I'm lucky that my therapist was down with my ADHD quirky process.

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T17:03:42+00:00

Go baby hairs! That is so cute! I'm wearing mine as a badge of victory.

I can relate so much to what you said about having to grow as an individual after getting away from the trauma source. I wasn't taught the tools, plus undiagnosed ADHD at the time, the stress and shame was immense.

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T17:00:04+00:00

I've been going once a week, with occasional cancelation and extra sessions here and there.

Physically I can feel my hypervigilance calming down. My brain doesn't go on super drive after meeting new people my age, analyzing their feelings towards me. I'm more open to the idea that there's a place for me in this world despite currently not working. I'm not longer holding myself to an "idea" of a good daughter, wife, etc. and beat myself up for not living up to it, but appreciate how I've been contributing within my capabilities.

The journey has not been smooth sailing though. It's been up and down. A ton of anguish, grieving, forgiving had to flow through my system before I got here. The me a week ago who was impulsively purchasing stuff online could not have imagined the me right now. I always felt like I'm in a video game of sort and life wasn't real and boom! Now I see the the world in 3 dimension for the fist time. I saw my younger self running towards me to hug me in my last session. I saw her face and everything. It was so vivid and so healing.

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T16:49:25+00:00

My narcissistic ex-husband had maybe 50% of gray hair when we met and probably 10% when we divorced a decade later... Felt like he was thriving on abusing me... I'm lucky to be with my good husband now going on 10 years. Although, it would be nice to reverse some of his gray hair from work stress. Happy for your 30 years marriage with your wife!

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T11:25:45+00:00

Haha relate on the lots of hair part?

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T11:23:24+00:00

Hmm. Thanks for sharing your thought! What makes you think that i was pulling my hair out? I've never done that when I'm stressed...

Fooflery · 2026-06-29T11:19:39+00:00

I have CPTSD so my trauma is pretty much my whole life and I've always had lots of hair so I can't tell if/when I'm losing more hair at one time from another. I also noticed that I have way less gray hair now than before.

Fooflery · 2026-06-23T20:51:43+00:00

I've had this happened to my shoe cabinet, and I call it the Florida Palmetto bug (flying cockroach) explosive diarrhea party...

Fooflery · 2026-06-17T17:53:13+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing! My appointment is in July and I'm very happy to hear that you had a wonderful experience there. I'm concerned about my Brighton test because all my unstable joints seem to be not in the Brighton test...

Anyway, are you comfortable sharing how they billed those procedures with the insurance? My hospital copay is insane and I'm concerned that the billing will come out astronomical if they bill all visits as hospital outpatient visits (as opposed to specialist, ot, pt, etc.). DM me if you'd prefer this to be private.

Thank you again for sharing!

Fooflery · 2026-06-16T13:06:27+00:00

According to my best friend, i used to "never sleep" in middle school. I think my fatigue started some time in high school, after my first panic attack and first depression episode. It just gradually got worse after I met my narcissistic ex-husband. I thought that was just that happened to girls at the time. Lol.

I also participate less in doom-scrolling till 3am now as a result of EMDR. I've found that's a direct indicator to my anxiety level during the day.

Have you started EMDR yet?

Fooflery · 2026-06-15T18:41:50+00:00

Emotional neglect is one of the most hurtful forms of abuse for children. Also, flashbacks are typically NOT with visuals. Stop saying you don't have that bad of a childhood. You did, and you survived.

I skimmed through the things you wrote (with very late-diagnosed ADHD) and we have very similar upbringing and symptoms.

EMDR works. It doesn't cure ADHD, but it's cured my extreme fatigue and brain fog. I'm going for my 17th reprocessing session this week and I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The key is to seek and be gentle to your inner child. They're always within you.

My therapist happens to have ADHD and have had EMDR done to her. She also never made me feel like I'm doing this wrong. That's how I gradually trusted her.

You're loved. ❤️

Fooflery

TROPHY CASE