This post could probably go also in the "flashbacks" section, too, but I'll add it here since I think it's relevant to this very valuable thread...hope others might connect. A new phenomenon for me--I realize now that I am still relatively early in my recovery process--is auditory flashbacks. I used to think I had c-ptsd sans flashbacks, but now I understand that I just wasn't "there" yet (if that makes sense--does it?)...So now that I've started really unpacking the "stuff" and getting that it's had a lifelong impact on me, only now am I having this terrible experience of my ears being filled with "real time" sounds from my past. This has not been easy and I've tried in the last week or so to bring the fact of this new experience for me into the therapy conversation. The problem--as of last week--was that then I started to have an auditory flashback in the presence of my therapist. This was different than the "world salad" I described earlier in this thread when it comes to talking about hard stuff. This was me being totally overwhelmed, holding my ears, while she tried to get me to describe what I was hearing--"we can listen together." No...we could not listen together, as I just could...not...do it...I tried but I couldn't "talk it" and "hear it" at the same time, and finally just was exhausted, distracted, kind of out of it, and told her it's just too difficult for me. I can understand that (so my T says) this is progress but...yikes, not fun, and I am feeling super vulnerable in the therapy room and trying to keep myself from withdrawing too much from my T. But these kinds of situations ignite my "I can't trust you" loop. It's so tiring--I know many others feel this too--and I feel sorry for my T that even in trying to help me along she has to endure the one-step-forward/two-back phenomenon. Can others relate? Advice for how you've moved through such sessions? :O_o:
