Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be a professional of any capacity regarding mental health, therapy, neurology, or psychology. Anything written in this post or on my entire blog should be interpreted as my own experiences and not advice in any capacity.

I’ve been looking into EMDR lately and practicing the methods a little on my own. Specifically, the method of using tactile responses while simultaneously reprocessing a traumatic memory. While I am clearly not a professional, I do believe the simultaneous use of tactile and mental responses leads to greater results.

I tried rapid eye movement while focusing on the memory I have of the night I was first raped. After visualizing the memory, I identified the feelings I had of that night: shame, guilt, confusion, shock, and feelings of “this is my fault.” Focusing on that memory and those feelings while simultaneously conducting rapid eye movement back and forth supposedly activates both sides of the brain and allows the brain to release or reprocess the traumatic event and feelings. There are several phases to EMDR, one including reprocessing the memory by telling yourself positive affirmations to counter the negative feelings. I told myself, “It was not my fault,” and, “I am safe now,” repeatedly while visualizing the memory and doing rapid eye movement.

After a short self-test with that memory and tactile responses, I did feel a bit lighter afterwards and a less negative attachment to that memory.

I tried to incorporate both the mental and tactile stimulations once again with meditation. I used my noise-cancelling headphones to play a guided meditation while gently playing with a fidget toy. The fidget toy I have has several tactile points and I mainly utilized the scrolling movement and the bumpy feeling on the fidget toy. The guided meditation I played was words of affirmation and cleaning the body of negative energy – reprocessing. The fidget toy/tactile response allowed me to focus better on the guided meditation because it reduced my restlessness and gave me something to physically focus on without diverting my focus on the words.

After both of these self-experiments, I do feel lighter and less negative. I can visualize the traumatic memory of my rape without immediately feeling a negative response. It almost feels as though I am detached from the memory. It feels as though I can visualize the memory with objectivity rather than fear. The edges of the visual memory also seem blurred and less clear in my visualization.

I would love to test EMDR more and see where it takes me.