I Tried EMDR and Thought It Wasn't Working. That Was the Most Important Moment of My Healing

I remember sitting in my therapist's office thinking: of course it's not working for me.
We were several sessions into EMDR. I'd done the research. I knew it was evidence-based. I knew it had helped thousands of people process trauma they'd carried for decades. And yet - nothing. No big release. No breakthrough. Just me, following my therapist's hand go back and forth, waiting for something to shift, and feeling increasingly convinced that I was the exception.
The unfixable one.
But here's what I didn't know yet: that thought, of course it's not working for me, wasn't a sign that EMDR had failed.
It was actually activating my deepest wound and fear. That I was completely broken.

The Moment Everything Changed
Somewhere in the middle of all that nothing, my therapist gently pointed at what was actually happening. Not at the original memory we'd been targeting. At that thought. The one that said I was too broken even for the thing designed to help broken people.
We turned toward it.
And that's when the floodgates broke open.
Because underneath all my achieving, all my competence, all my years of being the person who figured things out,  there was a belief so old I'd stopped hearing it. A belief that something was inherently wrong with me. That other people healed. Other people got better. Other people were worth the effort.
Not me, though.
When we targeted that - the belief, the feeling, the place in my body where it lived - everything shifted.

What EMDR Actually Did to My Memories
Here's the part that still amazes me to explain.
Before EMDR, certain memories felt present. Not past-tense, present. I could close my eyes and be right back inside them. The emotion was immediate. The charge was fully intact. It didn't feel like remembering something that happened; it felt like it was still happening.
After several sessions of EMDR targeting those memories? They changed.
Not disappeared. Not erased. Changed.
I could recall the same scene and feel neutral. Like I was watching a movie I'd already seen. Like an observer looking at something that happened to a younger version of me, with compassion for her, but without being pulled back into the current of it.
The memory became neutral. And that neutrality, after years of bracing every time a certain thought crossed my mind, felt like the most radical thing I'd ever experienced.
That's what EMDR can do. That's what I was too stuck in my own wound to believe was possible for me.

What Is EMDR, Actually?
If you've heard of EMDR but aren't quite sure what it is, you're not alone. It's one of the most misunderstood and underexplained trauma therapies out there.
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The short version: it's a structured therapy that helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories that got "stuck." Memories that your nervous system never fully filed away as past.
When something overwhelming happens, your brain sometimes can't process it the way it normally would. The memory gets stored with all its original emotion and sensation intact (the fear, the shame, the confusion)  frozen at the moment it happened. That's why trauma can feel so present even years later. Your brain isn't being dramatic. It literally never finished processing.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation. most often eye movements, sometimes tapping or sounds, to engage both hemispheres of your brain while you hold the traumatic memory in mind. It mimics what your brain does during REM sleep when it's naturally processing and integrating experience. With a trained therapist guiding the process, those stuck memories begin to move.
The emotional charge decreases. The memory starts to feel like a memory; something that happened, not something that's still happening.

The Part Nobody Warns You About
Here's what I wish someone had told me before I started: EMDR doesn't always feel like it's working. Especially at first.
Sometimes the early sessions feel flat, or frustrating, or like you're just staring at a light bar waiting for something to happen. Sometimes, like it did for me, the most important thing that surfaces isn't the original memory at all. It's the belief that got activated around the process. The "I'm too broken for this." The "nothing ever works for me." The "I don't deserve to heal."
Those beliefs aren't obstacles to the work. They are the work.
I've seen this pattern with clients in my Nashville practice over and over again. The women who hit that early plateau, who sit across from me and say "I don't think it's doing anything," are often the ones on the edge of the biggest breakthroughs. Because what they're bumping up against isn't a limitation of EMDR. It's a core wound that's been running the show for years, finally surfacing where it can actually be reached.
The flatness is often the thing we've been looking for all along.

Who EMDR Is Right For
In my practice, I use EMDR with women who are carrying things they can't seem to think their way out of.
Maybe they've done talk therapy before. They have all the insight, they understand where their patterns came from, they can articulate it beautifully, but nothing changes. The anxiety is still there. The trigger still dysregulates and activates them. The relationship dynamic keeps repeating.
That's how EMDR helps. Because it targets the traumatic material stuck in the brain stem and helps push it through.

EMDR is especially effective for:
Childhood trauma and emotional neglect
High-functioning women who have "dealt with" things by achieving around them
Women who are triggered by things that "shouldn't" bother them anymore
Anyone who has ever said "I know it logically, but I still feel it"
Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-worth wounds rooted in early experiences

I work virtually with women across Tennessee (Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, Green Hills, Belle Meade, Oak Hill, and beyond)  offering EMDR alongside somatic therapy and Internal Family Systems (IFS) as part of a fully individualized approach. A real therapeutic relationship built around you specifically.

Before You Go
If you've been curious about EMDR, or if you tried it before and it didn't seem to work, I want you to hear something.
That experience doesn't mean you're unfixable. It might mean you were right at the edge of the most important thing, and no one helped you see it.
You don't have to have a dramatic story to deserve EMDR. You don't have to be in crisis. You just have to be carrying something that won't let go. And be willing to sit with it long enough to let it finally move.

If that's you, let's talk.
Book a free 15-minute consultation or schedule a session immediately → https://nicolettetomaszewski.sessionshealth.com/

05/04/2026

By Nicolette Tomaszewski, LPC-MHSP | EMDR Therapy for Women in Nashville & Across Tennessee