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My EMDR therapist is not listening to me

queer_autistic_enby26298

I got diagnosed with PTSD during the first lockdown due to me being abused into being more neurotypical in school and college, homophobic behaviour from a sexual health professional and other types of abuse in school and college (both special school and mainstream).

I am currently having EMDR therapy but I do not enjoy it, I always dread the sessions and I find it really hard even though I have agreed to 4 more sessions as I've already had 6 and already want to stop. 

Why? Because the therapist is denying I have an intellectual disability (when part of the abuse was to get me to use advanced language skills that I still don't understand), they are giving me 'function labels' when they should know that is damaging, saying I don't appear autistic when I don't even mask and saying I'm very good at 'processing' when I'm really struggling with it . I am very disgusted by what they have been saying, I feel let down, not listened to and I never thought a therapist would be so judgemental. I feel they are not helping me. 

I might be made redundant from my job due to covid which I did tell them about but they said supported employment services are 'not appropriate' because they're denying I have learning difficulties  and truth be told, Mencap's employment support services helped me get my current job so I personally don't agree with them. 

I really don't want to do it anymore, maybe I'm being 'function labelled' because I am too nice. I maybe need a different therapist, all they're doing is making my life so depressing. 

Please help, I don't know what to say to them. 

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  • On the question of EMDR. I've looked into this for myself as a treatment for a childhood trauma. As I understand it's good for a one off trauma, or things that happened a few times (eg car accident, witnessing an event, assault, etc), but not for something that happens over a long period of time (eg abuseive parent, longterm bullying).

    It's not gonna do anything for an autistic person's general life problems, but I'm considering it for a particular incident from my life where it seems proven generally to be effective. I've only read good stuff generally. And I'm not sure what else I'd do anyway cos talking therapy doesn't seem much good for me at all. And talking therpies seem way less efficacious than EMDR for trauma.

    I did some NLP recently to help me with a phobia. It was amazing. I talked to the psychologist about using it for other issues I have but he siggested EMDR. He was well aware of my autism, and although not a specialist his wife was autistic so I guess he was fairly informed. He seemed to get my autism when using NLP.

    It's a bit like CBT. Totally crap for lots of things including for treating people with Personality Disorders, but it can still be useful for someone with a Personality Disorder for certain difficulties.

    So I wouldn't necessarily give up on EMDR, but I'd definitely get away from this therapist if they're actually not listening to you. I would check in with yourself whether it is them or whether it's how you're experiencing the relationship. Therapy can do that to you. But sounds like it's them.

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  • On the question of EMDR. I've looked into this for myself as a treatment for a childhood trauma. As I understand it's good for a one off trauma, or things that happened a few times (eg car accident, witnessing an event, assault, etc), but not for something that happens over a long period of time (eg abuseive parent, longterm bullying).

    It's not gonna do anything for an autistic person's general life problems, but I'm considering it for a particular incident from my life where it seems proven generally to be effective. I've only read good stuff generally. And I'm not sure what else I'd do anyway cos talking therapy doesn't seem much good for me at all. And talking therpies seem way less efficacious than EMDR for trauma.

    I did some NLP recently to help me with a phobia. It was amazing. I talked to the psychologist about using it for other issues I have but he siggested EMDR. He was well aware of my autism, and although not a specialist his wife was autistic so I guess he was fairly informed. He seemed to get my autism when using NLP.

    It's a bit like CBT. Totally crap for lots of things including for treating people with Personality Disorders, but it can still be useful for someone with a Personality Disorder for certain difficulties.

    So I wouldn't necessarily give up on EMDR, but I'd definitely get away from this therapist if they're actually not listening to you. I would check in with yourself whether it is them or whether it's how you're experiencing the relationship. Therapy can do that to you. But sounds like it's them.

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