Personally, I think you should start with conventional therapy, which might include some exposure therapy, before trying psychedelic drugs, that might do serious harm in the wrong hands.

EMDR is supposed to be really promising, has anyone tried it?

Also thinking about it as a friend really recommended it. She experienced a single trauma and went to 4 EMDR sessions and since then her sleep is completely different! I’m not sure if it works so well for multiple trauma as in my case.

I know that many will disagree but for me exposure therapy felt really uncomfortable and I couldn’t stand it. A few weeks later, I headed to EMDR. This time something felt different for me and I could say after a few months that I really do feel better. Could be many factors influencing such as the therapist and my state of mind but anyway this was my personal experience:)

I tried traditional therapy, many medications, my PTSD was considered chronic, severe, and treatment resistant until I participated in the MAPS sponsored study of MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD. It saved my life. My PTSD is now considered slight to mild after that study.

Hi BlueViolet, can you share some more on your experience with MDMA? Who is it good for? How long did it take? 🙏

I would love to hear more about it as well.. ✋

I did CBT. Basically I wrote my story over and over again until I was tired of it and that really helped (+ is something you can do on your own).

Which professionals are recommended for post-traumatic CBT?

They are mostly psychotherapist but unlike other therapies it's usually for a limited amount of sessions which I personally find comforting

I’m very interested in other types of therapy. Traditional therapy hasn’t worked for me at all.

I'm also interested in the MDMA assisted psychotherapy. My only concern is the fact that my current medications cause me to be susceptible to hyponatremia. MDMA can also cause dangerously low sodium levels (severe hyponatremia). So maybe I need to get on different meds first lol (was already a plan due to me having been in the hospital twice now with severe hyponatremia)

Sounds rough, mixing those mood drugs is quite risky, anyway never do it without proper medical supervision 🙌

Yup

EMDR had helped the most of any PTSD therapy for me aside from DBT

How long did you do it and with which professional?

I've tried EMDR and found it very helpful. I found it very comfortable when I did it. I never experienced discomfort.

I've tried EMDR over 10 years ago and I wanted to kill myself after 1 session because I also have bipolar and it made me go into a bad depression

I'm getting ready to start emdr myself, I'm very hopeful,!

EMDR is really draining and hard but changed my life. if it becomes too much I really recommend going to a trauma treatment center even at an IOP level. it made doing EMDR manageable and gave me the skills to deal with my trauma symptoms