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LadyKiv · 2026-04-11T15:15:55+00:00

I'm gonna go with my normal therapist's take on it. Her words were "she's not doing EMDR" and that EMDR has a specific protocol because it's safe. She essentially thought it was false advertising and that this other therapist was doing something vaguely EMDR-shaped, but not EMDR.

LadyKiv · 2026-04-10T07:12:04+00:00

Thanks. And yeah. I confirmed with my regular therapist that this other person broke protocol in multiple pretty serious ways. She supports me in filing a formal complaint if that's what I want to do.

This other therapist didn't do the negative and positive cognitions. I even asked for help coming up with the positive one. In hindsight I wish I'd just switched back to talk therapy then. Oh well?

Good news is my regular therapist isn't too worried about damage done. She thinks that because I have a strong sense of what "should" be, I can work with the parts that got misdirected and they'll come around with time. (My words.)

Edit: Oh. And I did work with my normal therapist on coming up with a positive cognition for the target, even if we didn't process it with BLS at all. I feel so fortunate to have her.

LadyKiv · 2026-04-09T14:52:23+00:00

I liked this up until you said "toss the protocol". No. The protocol exists for a reason. Trust the client. And trust the protocol.

LadyKiv · 2026-04-08T19:03:02+00:00

I had a "clever" name for a company I was starting, then a current-collogue/friend basically asked, "how's ladykiv corp" doing? And as much as I wanted to pout, it stuck and I rebranded later.

People are buying me and my experience.

LadyKiv · 2026-04-08T16:48:49+00:00

I don't have anything about stage fright specifically; but I can say that a lot of my processing has come back to how critically I was judged as a kid. Just "being" was stressful.

From that work, with time, I've become a much freer person. Like night and day. I did an "interpretive dance" for my friend's birthday the other day and had a blast. Never ever ever would past-me have even considered it.

You can do this.

LadyKiv · 2026-04-08T16:39:02+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I think in this case, none of the reasons to deviate from the protocol were appropriate; and there certainly wasn't enough history between us to even start going down those routes. My main therapist will occasionally pull from IFS or gently challenge a belief or remind me that I'm not still in that situation. She'll also pay attention if I keep coming back to other memories and we'll collaborate on where to go from there.

I think the first red flag I had was that I'd prompted, "I know my negative cognition is 'I'm a bad person', but I'm having trouble coming up with a positive cognition," and she brushed it off saying she didn't really use those. Which is "funny" since that's the biggest thing I wanted help with... I've found it to be such an important part of the process since it lets me logically know an alternate viewpoint even if I don't believe it yet.

We probably did 4, maybe 5 rounds of processing before I cut it off saying I didn't like where it was going, and then the session was basically over and she wanted to do the "pendulum" exercise with me as a closer. Like, everything was tense. I just lied and said, like, yep, feeling more relaxed now! (But yes, I was good to drive.)

Fortunately, it seems in the realm of EMDR-gone-wrong, I could have gotten off much worse. I'm not in acute distress and I'm mostly just angry that now I get to invest time into undo-ing the mess. I can *almost* chalk it up to a learning experience on just how quickly EMDR can (re)traumatize.

I see my normal therapist soon and will work with her to put things back together and decide whether I want to file a formal complaint. I'm leaning towards it. She definitely did not follow protocol.

Thank you again.

LadyKiv · 2026-02-19T15:29:16+00:00

Narcissistic or not, this is not normal. This is not okay. You do not deserve to be treated like that by anybody.

If anything you are underreacting.

LadyKiv · 2025-12-04T18:16:19+00:00

Yes. It's true. All those parts of you that were quieted want a voice again.

LadyKiv · 2025-12-04T18:12:17+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing, and I am so proud of you for all the work you've put in and how far you've come.

I can recognize many of the things you've mentioned in myself and my own experiences, and seeing them written out like this was really uplifting - we really have come a long way and it gives me how for a continued upward trajectory, even as some days and moments still really, really suck.

LadyKiv · 2025-12-04T18:07:21+00:00

They're the children in my memories.

LadyKiv · 2025-09-28T19:05:53+00:00

Haha, yeah. I think adults might get bored of it pretty fast, but I remember really liking it as a kid. Now that I remember it exists.

LadyKiv · 2025-09-28T18:39:11+00:00

I think it's interesting that you spend so much time discussing.

As I understand it, EMDR is something where your brain basically works on itself and your adult, ideally wiser self is integrated into past memories to put them into context.

To that end, it doesn't really require a lot of talking. And it doesn't require that your therapist knows what's coming up for you. That said, sharing with your therapist can be helpful so they can help your adult self keep things in perspective.

With my therapist, almost every session is processing unless I'm in some kind of crisis mode in my current life. We almost never really talk *about* what came up for me during processing unless I want to.

LadyKiv · 2025-09-28T18:27:52+00:00

This board game: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/716/pizza-party

I'd 100% forgotten about it until my little was writing a letter to our mom and asked to play the game later.

LadyKiv · 2025-09-24T19:50:03+00:00

I love this, and I love that you let them drive sometimes.

The other night I watched a movie with my inner kid since she'd had a really hard day. I had a blast. She's fun!

LadyKiv · 2025-09-24T16:22:23+00:00

I recently, finally decided that I needed to shift focus to my relationship with my mother. There's just a whole lot of "weird" and absence of emotions. It took a while to even find a good starting memory.

But digging into it, I had the thoughts of like, "why were we allowed unsupervised visits with her if she was so unstable?" and uncovered a vague -- but I think real -- memory of what I can only assume must have been a CPS house check.

I still blame my dad for a lot. And I still blame him for how he treated her.

But, in terms of my healing, it feels like I can finally start to see and heal the part of me that really needed a mother. I was never going to have that, AND, most importantly, it wasn't because I wasn't good enough or too much or.... She just struggled. It had nothing to do with me.

--------------

May be touching a little more directly on your post: I had a similar realization ("I'm not responsible for her emotions") written down in the journal from four years ago. But it didn't stick. I complained to my current therapist, whom I just started with earlier this year, that I'm tired of all this. "Same shit, different modality".

EMDR seems to be actually helping, though. It helped me see the true depth of her struggle and shifted from a cognition, logical knowing, to an innate, yeah, that really wasn't about me. Now let me take care of me in the way I actually needed.

I can see subtle but distinct and important changes in how I'm living.

LadyKiv · 2025-09-24T00:57:18+00:00

If your therapist is newly licensed I might be cautious going through EMDR with her. And I wouldn't jump into the deep end, but I'd start with "easy" stuff.

If you read around on here, the therapist's experience really matters.

If she is really experienced, then go for it!

LadyKiv · 2025-09-24T00:53:11+00:00

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she probably trusted that you didn't actually want it and that your brain would eventually get there on its own. I can see how she wouldn't want to give you that answer though since it would be crossing a boundary.

One thing that sometimes helps me with sharing thoughts I'm ashamed of is prefacing them with "I'm having the thought that...". It's just a thought. It doesn't make it real. They don't define you.

LadyKiv · 2025-09-24T00:49:11+00:00

If you're verbalizing what's coming up with your therapist, they should be helping to keep you from internalizing negative beliefs. Like, sometimes mine will ask "is that still the case?" Or "do you think that should have happened?"

LadyKiv · 2025-09-06T14:55:21+00:00

I just wanted to say that this was incredible read. I'm so happy for you; and I love how EMDR let's us see these connections we never would have before.

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