Triggers

[AzureDreamer]

I think im a well rounded person. Rational, friendly, good in a crisis. Mum of 2 - married - able to deal with the normal stresses and stains of most of life. Except that is when it comes to my family. Mother, father and siblings. They trigger me so badly I suffer from bad anxiety and panic attacks. Literally my body will freeze, I can’t eat, I shake and can’t think straight. I turn into someone I just don’t recognise. It’s a toxic situation and I find it very difficult. Most of the people I know would not think I could be like this. To most people I’m calm, sensible and good friend and have it all together. I could do with some advice, it’s creeping into my life more and more.

Assuming you're aware of all the advice about seeing your GP and looking into some kind of therapy... a few years ago after reading and hearing about how useful some people found EMDR, I decided to try it on myself and have had some success.

[Disclaimer: I am in no way qualified as a mental health professional and many people have good arguments for why you shouldn't do EMDR on your own, so please do your own research if this isn't something you're familiar with.]

I've used a session I found on YouTube as a model (no idea what qualifications the practitioner has, I probably picked it because it's short and so is my attention span).

Then I worked out what ... I forget the official vocab, but like what new outcome I wanted to install and just did it really. And although the EM of EMDR is eye movement, I found tapping (which is shown in the same video) a bit easier.

For me, it's been useful for specific memories that I felt stuck in, but not for dealing with the effects of growing up in unpredictable environments (stuff like hypervigilance).

Yes I’m aware of help from GP which I have done.