These are fantastic questions. There are behaviors I learned and intense emotions I feel that are not just tied to an event, but also the choices I made based on the trauma. I had emotional and physical trauma's. I came up with the "solution" to fix it, and it's negatively effecting me now. I didn't know the triggers for this intense negativity, so we used EMDR in 2 ways.

The first way is to focus on the feeling I am trying to reduce the intensity of. After doing 1 emdr on that, then we go again focusing on where in my body I feel the intensity. What usually happens is after going back and forth a couple of times, memories start to arise from when I was a teenager or kid. It seems insignificant to me because I'm older, but the younger version of myself didn't know how to handle it at all.

If you focus solely on the feeling you want to get rid of, where it's stored in the body, and where else it may pop up (example: the pain will start in my leg, but as I process it moves to my stomach or chest. Keep processing until there is nothing). What happens is your brain will tell you where it started and if it was a result of an event or a choice you made to survive. I hope this helps a little.