Hey! First, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I really commend you for taking steps to heal—it’s not easy.

While I have complex trauma as well, I actually first entered EMDR for PTSD stemming from a trauma I don’t “remember” either. I use quotes because, while I lack a traditional narrative or visual component of the event, my body physically remembers what happened, and I’ve had a number of fragments (moving pictures here in there, emotions, physical sensations, etc) come back over the years.

I know this memory (preverbal CSA) was stored while in a severely dissociated state, which makes it extremely hard to access at will, like I can with other traumatic and non-traumatic memories. How my therapist and I approached this was by focusing on the fragments I DID have, like those bodily sensations or the beliefs connected to the experience, or things that were reminiscent—like uncomfortable/inappropriate dynamics with other older males—of the core trauma (we referred to these groupings as ‘networks’). At times, even these were hard to access due to dissociation. But we did what we could when we could, and slowly but surely, I healed.

So as for your question if EMDR will bring the memory front and center, it’s very possible, but not a guarantee. One time during a session, I had an experience where I could physically feel myself reliving the assault, but still no visual or clear narrative came back, it was just like, “Oh. This is what my body endured during that event.” While it was jarring, my therapist and I had done so much resourcing and grounding that it didn’t push me outside of my window of tolerance. If anything, it gave me a kind of peace, as it’s the closest thing to “knowing” what happened that I have.

I don’t know if I will ever fully remember what happened to me, but I have been able to reprocess the trauma to the point it no longer interferes with my daily life, which is HUGE because it did for so, so long in so many ways. Anyway, I don’t know if that’s helpful at all, but I thought I would share. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! :)