T K

I forgot to add that, if possible, try to do this with others who are supportive of what you are trying to accomplish. It can be terrifying to be so vulnerable, and while having people there to witness you in that state, but their presence can and does have a multiplying effect on the impact that is helpful.

Anything that requires any degree of "picture this..." is a non-starter for me, no exceptions. Having tried those, I only get more frustrated and that is counter-productive. You can accomplish something similar, based on my own experience, if you are open to approved psychedelic therapy under supervision of a professional. It is the dissociative property of those tools that helps people to objectively look at their trauma instead of emotionally. It seems like EMDR is a way of training your brain to disassociate from a feeling through distraction. I've always felt disassociated, though. A way of helping me to turn abstraction into emotional truth was helpful. I don't know how to explain it other than that, you might know that something is logically true, but then you get into a state where you /feel/ its truth, and the intensity of that feeling is what is freeing. You just /know/ it is true because of the depth of that feeling. But, for me, maybe as a "perk" of aphantasia, that strength of memory is fleeting, so I have to sometimes remind myself that it happened. :) I've had and have seen similar experiences with people who talk about what they think as they think it. Maybe you can't visualize something happening, but you can say it out loud and describe what it would be that you would be seeing, if you could see it. Talk about the trauma out loud and then talk about the action you would be doing through visualization: "I feel scared because of ____, and would move my eye this direction this many times, and again, and again... I feel _____, and I would do _____." Perform the action like you are in a play as you say it. The goal is, usually, to absolve yourself from any sense of responsibility for what happened to you that you cannot control, and to believe in that lack of control, and be okay with it, knowing that a lack of control then doesn't mean you have a lack of control now. Lastly, meditation can be great because all we see is the blank void of nothingness, something people who don't have aphantasia have to strive for, and we just have it from the beginning. The idea isn't to "stop thoughts," but to not have emotional attachment to thoughts. The trick is that, usually after the 20 minute mark of doing movements and breathing exercises to stay relaxed, the longer you stay in that state, the more dysphoric meditation can feel. At about 30-40 minutes, you might feel completely separated from everything, even yourself, but if you are used to that feeling, it likely will not bother you, but it could be profoundly disturbing to someone with hyperphantasia. Sorry for the information dump. Excited to be here. :P