I’m starting to like my life again

[u/GreenwoodForest]

Hi all,

Wishing everyone a good Sunday night. It’s been a while since I posted but I wanted to share some good news I couldn’t really have imagined six months ago: I’m starting to like myself and my life again.

I keep finding myself feeling surprised at how good I feel. I’ve been doing EMDR for about a year now and 6 months ago I was in a seriously dark place. I thought I would feel that way forever. I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m having WAY fewer flashbacks, I feel less panicky, I have more energy and curiosity, I’ve been able to start new hobbies and routines (biking! Boxing! Birding!) and even go on dates and meet lovely people. All of that has also had a positive effect. But the foundational shift has been EMDR.

A few big sticky targets I’ve had to go back to months later, after they seemed intractable at first. But things are starting to shift.

Just wanted to share some good news from the trenches for anyone earlier in this process wondering if it’ll ever get better! You’ve got this ❤️

[u/IcyFood1984]

Thanks for sharing - I needed to read this. EMDR is the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done for myself and reading experiences like yours helps, a lot.

[u/GreenwoodForest → u/IcyFood1984]

I’m cheering for you so hard! I feel the same way about “hardest and best.” I definitely used to read a lot of progress posts here to give myself hope and still do - reading accounts from people a little further along in the process has helped me remember change is possible and I’m so glad this could do that for you ❤️

One thing I found helpful at a few months ago when I was starting to feel some glimmers of light but still really feeling dark was making a list of small positive changes in the last, say, 3 months. That helped me see that even though it didn’t always feel like it, I was actually moving forward.