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My T Keeps Appearing In My Intrusive Memories / Flashbacks

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NovemberStar

MyPTSD Pro
I've been seeing my T for a few months. I trust her more than any other T I've seen (in 20 years of therapy. I've begun to explore things I have never ever been prepared to even contemplate talking about, let alone talk about them. I've been experiencing transference issues, and am being honest about this - it is the hardest thing I've dealt with in therapy. For the past couple of weeks, my T has started to appear in the intrusive memories / images I've been having for the past few months. It's taken me days to acknowledge even to myself that she IS in them.

Has anyone else had this happen??

On one hand, I see it as a positive thing - I must trust her enough to 'place' her there. The particular memory that keeps replaying over and over in my mind, was the aftermath of something happening that left me terrified, alone, incredibly hopeless and suicidal (I was about 9 or 10 years old). Back then I definitely needed desperately, for someone kind and caring to BE there, when there was no one. I think it's quite telling that in the flashes, she wants me to re inact these aria that is causing me so much pain and fear. At one point in the memory, i put myself in my bedroom cupboard as it's the only place I feel a little bit safe. It's when I come out of the cupboard I dread reliving because it's then I feel suicidally hopeless and a huge sense of 'there is no escape and it will always be like this!!!' In my recent flashes when my T is there too, I want her to come in the cupboard with me but she won't. It's something she needs me to do alone but she will stay in the room. There's no talking or words exchanged - it's just what I KNOW.

You don't have to be a psychologist to work out what all that means!

But it's also terrifying - the past and present are so mixed up I have periods of fearing the present isn't real and any moment I will wake up and be back in that bedroom as a child. I start doubting the present is REAL

More scary - I find myself doubting my T is real - does she actually exist outside her office?? if she isn't real, then I am alone again in having to face the trauma.

It's also damn hard because going to see her each week is now fraught with fear - and thinking of her or about going to see her inbetween sessions TRIGGERS more intrusive memories.

Going to see her used to feel SAFE - now it's mixed with the past, it is at times almost unbearable. I see her this Friday and it will be the first session since I emailed her the details of how she appears in the images / memories.

I've tried googling to find anything about this but haven't found anything
 
Thanks for sharing. It's great you emailed her, was it as informative as this post? It would be great to show her this. Good luck hun.
 
I'd say it can't be a memory or flashback if your therapist is appearing In it, because it isn't the actual event that happened. I think it might be helpful to recognise it as something else.

This is what I would call a waking dream. A waking dream is empowering and healing. A flashback is not (in my opinion). Using the word flashback is - in my opinion - connecting to powerlessness. And you might want to look at this: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/what-is-a-flashback-a-flashback-is.13876/, So if it isn't a flashback I'd suggest staying away from that disempowering word.

My experience of waking dreams is that - like dreams when we're asleep - they might not always do exactly what we'd like. Once when I was suicidal, I had a waking dream of my therapist appearing in the room - I was aware that this wasn't allowed, but glad that she had broken the rules. She came over to me and whispered something in my ear. And... she whispered too quietly for me to hear what she said. I so wanted to know what it was. But the point was her presence. The fact that she turned up. She was there, and that was significant and powerful. The rest was up to me.

From what you say, I see your experience as a very positive thing. What if you threw out the word flashback, and even memory, and instead you used the word processing? What if you saw the mixup of past and present as something good - good and strength in the present helping you work through the past?
 
I agree flashback is the wrong word - I don't really have flashbacks, more intrusive memories. I prefer to use that term, even if my T is in it because memories can be wrong, yet still the experience is like a memory. That probably only makes sense to me ....... In the flashes I get all the sensations of a mini flashback - I can see, smell, sense and feel things that did happen - it's like my brain has mixed it up with the present and put my T in it. The term flashback does not feel bad or negative to me; I don't associate it with anything disempowering or otherwise - I call the intrusive memory like things I have 'mini flashes' when I'm working on understanding them... Cos to me they don't feel like how I'd imagine a flashback to be as they only last a few seconds - often literally just a FLASH, of a second or two - it's the emotional aftermath and yuck feeling from it that lasts for minutes or much much longer.

(I really don't want to get into a dialogue about what flashbacks are and aren't - I've seen how those threads turn out and it's rarely helpful!)

I do think it is a helpful thing - as scary and out of control as it feels, I do think it shows at an unconscious level that I trust her enough to allow her to be there, when I feel the most vulnerable I have in my life (that I remember).

Did you ever talk to your T about your waking dream?
 
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