Can EMDR work if there are no memories?

You are on the right track. When abuse is vicious and relentless (mother breaking your thigh bone!), the mind's protective system erases everything. I had a friend who said, "I don't remember anything from before my wedding" (Holocaust survivor family). The protective system may even limit or shut down the memory of more current events.
To replace the horrors of reality, our systems create safe fantasies for us to live in. I'm a hero firefighter. I'm a ballerina. (Everything's beautiful at the ballet)
Problem with fantasies is they take too much energy to keep them going, and they break down in the face of realities, like aging or illness or job loss. Also the buried deep trauma surfaces as symptoms in disguise, physical and/or psychological.
Very rare that any therapist will be a match for the protective forgetting/fantasy syndrome (Donald Kalsched).
No one should ever be annoyed with you. The protective system is too strong. Anyone (good person) gaining your trust and "breaking through" will be seen as an enemy (to the shield) and be repelled.
It's a tough one. EMDR might work, but be careful. Rage, hurt, depression etc. etc. might be released. Baby steps.
Good luck🍀

EMDR therapy with my mental health counselor helped me to not focus on the bad times in my teenage years, specifically those related to my dad. She helped me forget about those experiences and to not waste any emotional energy on them anymore.
It's helped me considerably.

@shmerdloff Thank you for this! I looked up Kalsched, and so much resonated for me.

Went through a similar background of sustained abuse, which for me started at age 5 - physical and sexual and verbal abuse - and I believed that I hadn’t formed memories of most of it. But when I started seeing a psychiatrist after an aborted suicidal event, I found through extensive therapy that I had formed the memories - but I deeply suppressed them. It has taken over 28 years of therapy with both a psychiatrist and a psychologist to reach those memories. It’s not a lot of fun to go through this recovery process, but it has helped me understand where my anxiety, depression and PTSD stems from. It also has granted me the permission to break all ties with my parents, for my own mental health.

@mbixler Thank you for the clarification. Memories do not disappear. They can be so deeply hidden and suppressed, as you've written, that a person can no longer access their long term memories. This is the big confusing part and puzzle about trauma. It lies buried in the mind and yet has an effect on a person's emotions and functioning. It takes a lot of stamina and courage to go through the process of reaching and reprocessing these memories as one does through intensive psychotherapy. EMDR is one of these methods. There are other methods and it's relevant to think about this. Ultimately, it's all about the therapeutic relationship you and your therapist establish together.

How are you feeling currently now that you have gone through this process and broke ties with your parents?

@mbixler It sounds like you’re on a path to wellness at a relatively young age. I’m 66 and just recently realized that most memories of my life have been suppressed — both good and bad. I don’t remember most of my childhood and even good memories (my kids birthdays) are not available.

I started my current therapy journey after being told my worsening tremors and anxiety jerking is due to my abused past. It’s weird, but I recently read that those of us with repressed memories generally don’t realize it. Part of that whole protective thing we have going on.

Absolutely true. It took over 2 years before my psychiatrist was able to get through to my repressed memories, and she believes that I still have many from my first 6 years of abuse, as there are still large gaps in my memories during that time span.

@naturegirl5 I’m much improved, but still have a lot of work to do. I realize that I will probably never be “emotionally normal” because the emotional scars left by the trauma cut so deeply in my personal views of myself. I was constantly told that I was less than I should be, a useless waste of humanity and many other wonderful quotes from my father. My Mom didn’t put me down all the time, but she never said a word to my father, and seemed to encourage the physical abuse and ignored the sexual abuse. She never seemed to hear me sobbing at night. I felt so guilty about cutting my parents out of my life, as I was constantly manipulated to believe that no matter what was done to me, that I owed them respect and love. It took a lot of convincing by my psychiatrist to realize that I needed to love myself, and stand up for my emotional needs. She had me write letters to them - laying out exactly what they did to me, and the miracle it was that I survived it and made a life for myself - despite their attempts to prevent it. I told them that I was going to be protecting myself from their actions going forward, and would no longer take their calls or allow them in my home. As you can imagine they blew up my phone with constant phone calls, which I refused to answer, and my father came to the house several times and would pound on the door for quite a while before giving up. That stopped when I yelled through the door that the police were on their way. So after a few months things calmed down. It’s now been 18 years since I cut them out of my life. I am emotionally more stable and have stopped having panic attacks. In other words I have a good life now.

So sad for all of us. How can parents/relatives/friends do this?
Closing from Sophie's Choice