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Is this a long flashback? A part? Kind of freaked out

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Cypress

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So for the past two days I’ve been having an intrusive memory from a time in my adolescence when there was a lot of trauma going. I hadn’t had access to this time in my life previously so this I thought this meant I was more connected to my parts.

While I was in therapy today talking about it, I suddenly felt this heavy weight of sadness and hopelessness and the distinct feeling that I was actually in the city where the trauma happened. I kept having to ground myself over and over. Well, the whole day has gone by and I still have this intense feeling that I am in this city. I took a long walk thinking I would feel better but the streets looked, smelled and sounded like the city where all this stuff happened. I did everything I usually do to ground myself in the present but the sensation just creeps right back: I am hopeless and in this other city. I think I am going nuts. I don’t know how else to get out of this sensation except to maybe take a sleeping pill and hope I feel better in the morning.

Anybody ever had something like this last for hours? What is this?
 
Focusing on hope - this is good advice. Actually getting hospitalized got me out of the situation. While I was in the hospital I felt safe and started to feel hope for the first time.

I think the thing that is bothering me the most about this flashback is the olfactory component. It cuts right through all the grounding I am doing and takes me right back to that city. I’m on day 2 now and still feel the same. I have to go to work so hopefully the distraction will settle this down. Ugh!
 
I think the thing that is bothering me the most about this flashback is the olfactory component.
This is why I create roller ball essential oil blends. I usually use my rose/lavendar/vanilla blend as it smells like the flowers of spring that I love so much. It kills my olfactory based flashbacks dead in their tracks - but the scent has to mean something to me. It has to conjure up feelings of warmth and safety, which spring flowers do.

Love how you can see that the hospital felt safe to you. I haven't had that experience and so wish I had. Well done!
 
I hear you loud and clear about olfactory flashbacks. Somehow they affect me more so than most. It's harder to combat.

I have to go outdoors and take deep breaths and smell the air. Essential oils help. Peppermint is strong! A little goes a long way. I hope you feel better soon and find your secret weapon.
 
But you survived that city.

Meaning, however despair inducing it is / was... you still got through that.
City loses, you win. You won then, you would get through every other time too, for you did it already.

& What of being there played your hand & had your back? << I focus on the advantages / escapes / hideouts / normalizing bits, as long as it takes to snap out of it.

Granted, some cities still don’t exist on my radar so well. Just travel & names of them, is aaall.
 
I focus on the advantages / escapes / hideouts / normalizing bits, as long as it takes to snap out of it.
Thank you for this. I've become aware that this flashback thing started when I was working on accepting that "I" not "her" was the victim of the pedophile. I have parts and this flashback felt like a warning of some kind from one of them, kind of like, if you go back there, you will feel like "she" did.

But now that I'm reworking that miserable situation I was in with the pedophile with a focus on ways I did escape or hide for real, not just in my mind by dissociating, the flashback feeling has started to lift. I was not completely helpless, even though I could not get out of the situation until I was hospitalized, I did take actions in small ways to protect myself.
 
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