Personal Experiences Of Flashbacks & Dissociation During Therapy And How Your Therapists Dealt W/it

[Mish89]

Hi all I am VERY new to the lingo of flashbacks and Dissocociative episodes, although I've been having them since I was 15 (12yrs now) I never allowed myself to work through my childhood abuse-I dealt, I coped-I never allowed myself to process the feelings and thoughts, I burried them never told anyone and coped with the feelings by developing anorexia/bulimia and cutting...12yrs later I literally had burried the original abuse and just put my issues down to low self esteem, untill I had my son and developed PND. I an now in therapy and am just following the tangled web back to the initial trauma with my therapists-VERY EARLY DAYS, he doesn't know what happened yet but just that something obviously did...anyway I have many triggers(some that reminded me of a trigger or a time and place I felt/heard/smelt a trigger and have become one in themselves..crap I sound crazy) smell of leather, the phrase 'do you understand' ESP if said in an angry way, popcorn smell and most strongly beer breath-anywhere near m-if hubby tries to kiss me I am completely gone.

I never had day flashbacks as I coped with my neg mechanisms for so long I only had them at night when I was unable to stop or distract myself, I just always checked out and went numb-like you could say or do anything to me cause I didn't care/or feel...like my feelings are locked beneath a frozen lake-still there just not bothering me..I stil live life but it's automatic and someone killed my feelings, it sounds insane but to be honest it's nice-it's a relief to not have the intrusive thoughts and feelings..ANYWAY(sorry this should have been in the introduce yourself section)
So when I was in hospital for PND I spoke to someone for the first time about my assault and abuse and oh my goodness it's opened a can of worms-it's been horrendous and I'm not coping at all.

During my 4th therapy I was walking in and smelt a man leather wallet/belt or shoes and as I sat in the waiting room I lost it-surrounding faded and all I could see/hear/smell was the night of the rape-no idea how long it had been but I felt everything g from that night but not as an experience more like a movie-my outside was frozen and apparently unresponsive-luckily my T went and got a lady and I began to hear her voice through it all and reality knew there was no other female there in that room that night so I began to come back, Im unsure if this was a flashback or dissocociation but either way it wiped me out.

My question is what are your experiences personal stories of flashbacks dissociation during therapy and how do your therapists handle them-I'm sure there are many ways. I always thought flashbacks where physical re-inactments like the war vets who hear a noise and duck screaming not me being a stunned mullet having a movie in my head and not being able to stop or get out. Oh gee that was long if youre still there thanks for listening...I'm just so confused and feel out of control now I've started down this road.

 

[rowean]

Misha,

You are not the only one and it sounds like your T is pretty spot on in terms of helping you, recognizing you needed to hear a woman's voice to come back.

In session on Friday I "left" as well. First time with the new T and the day had started out pretty rough anyway, major panic attack going in. Once she got me to breathe and be able to sit and talk we ended up on a topic that made me dissasociate. I have been fighting that a lot lately. During the session I got lost in the pattern on the rug and must have left for some time because I have no real sense of the session after that.

It is a bit disturbing but I keep reminding myself that this reaction comes from my brain's attempt to protect me. It is just a little out of whack right now.

Keep working and know you are not alone. I will try repeating that to myself as well.

 

[Red Feather]

In my last session, I started slipping and everything around me got real fuzzy. I don't get many visual flashbacks but I get a sense of jolting with a real fast flash of light. My T put bean bags on my feet and did an excersise with me from a method called Somatic Experiencing. I think after around 15 minutes I started coming back.

Take it easy on yourself. I hope you can find ways to get a sense of stability, while you start processing.

 

[Mish89]

Thanks rowean, do you find it makes you feel incredibly helpless? I feel nuts at times-I don't mind the checking out, but when accompanied by flashbacks it's horrible-hate to think what it looks like to others.

Yes he is very good-I never thought I'd trust a guy therapist but seems to be working. So far.

When you dissociate do you hear or see those around you? Ur T for instance, cause I don't at all...when I'm coming out of one I'll hear their voices far off at first and I guess that brings me back to the present thought.... I'm so scared to have a full on physical flashback as I sometimes do at night where I lash out and fight by abused and cry out loud, so I know I'm holding back from telling my T about the rape and subsequent assault because of this-but these episodes petrify me and leave me very vulnerable..it's so scary you know?

He'll think I'm crazy...well I guess I am a tad by the looks of it-and he's walking around happy and healthy makes me so angry I can't even tell you!

Once your out/gone how does she bring you back?

Thank you it's sad but nice to know you understand.x

 

[Mish89]

Hey Nadia, I haven't heard of that before, sounds like it works though..is it general practice or does it depends on the T..I don't know, we haven't even started grounding techniques -but I've also not told him the reasoning behind my dissociating..I'm scared to bring it all to the surface cause I know if it's bad now and it's burried how bad will it get when I'm actually processing it!?!
So do you feel it or is it your surrounding that blur and get lost? I'm sorry this happens-sucks.

 

[piratelady]

I'm so scared to have a full on physical flashback as I sometimes do at night where I lash out and fight by abused and cry out loud, so I know I'm holding back from telling my T about the rape and subsequent assault because of this-but these episodes petrify me and leave me very vulnerable..it's so scary you know?
He'll think I'm crazy...well I guess I am a tad by the looks of it-and he's walking around happy and healthy makes me so angry I can't even tell you!
Once your out/gone how does she bring you back?

He won't think you're crazy :) My therapist (and I imagine most trauma therapists), have heard and seen so much, they are used to it. Mine tells me that he has heard so many things over the years that I should not be afraid of what I have to tell him or how I will react. He's seen it all. I would imagine it's similar with your therapist.

It helped me to first talk about my feelings about talking about trauma. I spoke to him about how ashamed and humiliated I am of what happened to me and about how I was worried he would think I was crazy. He was able to talk to me about it and put me at ease. It took a few sessions of talking about it, but in time it really helped.

I would suggest talking about your concerns with your therapist. I'm sure he can help you to stay grounded in the present as well as address your concerns about what will happen when you talk about your rape.

 

[Red Feather]

It was both. I feel like my surroundings blur and darken. But I have this practically all the time. It's called derealization, that's when you feel like the world is not real. And depersonalization, like I am not really here you know? I have it real bad sometimes.

That day it got really intense because I felt I was slipping away and there was nothing left. And I was also having that jolting experience at the same time. They are similar to flashbacks except there is no sense of awareness that the energy is connected to a memory. But sometimes I have real strong emotional flashbacks where I feel like I am completely trapped and terrified.And I have only a few visually intrusive flashbacks. They were real scary too.

I think I might have dissociation disorder of some kind. I am getting a new doctor soon and so the whole process of diagnosing can continue.

This Somatic Experiencing seems like it can be a good thing. I can let you know what else she shows me in the future. It is a new T so I still need to get used to her. That day she told me to put the fingers on my left hand in between my nose and my lips and then my right hand above my neck holding the back of my head. It helped to get grounded.

I would just say take your time in disclosing those terrorizing memories. They seem to be very intense and you will need to have a lot of grounding work and stabiliy before being able to process them. That's my opinion. Stabilisation is a crucial part of doing a trauma therapy.

 

[rowean]

I have different experiences - sometimes I literally go away and blank - like one time I was driving and "came to" in a different place. That was frightening, I had really let go.

I have been fighting against it, trying to stay present. When I feel myself starting to go generally I get a rush of adrenaline, my whole body tingles, my ears buzz, I get tunnel vision (hence the getting lost in the pattern of the rug), and voices fade out. When I am trying to stay present it is often a struggle to speak, it is a real struggle to move. My T asked me the other day if I could look at her and I couldn't. She was okay with that btw.

She had suggested I go for a walk later and I was afraid I would end up somewhere I didn't want to be. She was trying to get me to work on being very mindfull as I walked in order to stay present. I want to try it but can't actually get myself to go out in public unless I have to right now.

 

[maddog]

As you can tell from the above responses, flashbacks come in many forms and are one of the most common of the dissociative symptoms often experienced in PTSD. I doubt there is anyone out there who hasn't experienced them as horrifically frightening and disorientating at times, and while they are absolutely never pleasant or easy to manage, some of the horror and stigma that you may feel can be reduced if you try to look upon them as, in fact, a very adaptive response to trauma that your mind developed as a mechanism of survival and self protection.

Certainly dissociation is no longer as adaptive after the fact as it is at the time, but if you think about it in the sense of an attempt at basic survival and protection, it helps to make the seemingly nonsensical a little more understandable.

Any trauma therapist worth their salt will not judge you for this at all, they have, as others have said, seen it many times before and will no doubt have useful tools and strategies, such as those associated with grounding, to help you to manage the flashbacks and dissociation, as well as to ultimately work on processing your trauma which is at the heart of reducing these symptoms.

I know this is a scary and overwhelming phase of the journey, know that we are all thinking of you and supporting you in going forward.

Maddog

 

[Meadowsweet]

My therapist has had me practising grounding and safe place visualisations.

Today we began practising toward reliving, so just going through stuff leading up to trauma. But already I dissociated.

For me, my mind and everything it controls just come to a stop. I can't work out how to speak or move.

My therapist handled it by asking me questions to take the memory forward just a bit to get me past the stopping point.

Then we did a visualisation to put the memory away, a safe place visualisation and she talked me through it to help bring me back to the here and now. And with her help, it worked really well.

But I think it helped for her to see me dissociate. Because she was able to put it together with what I feel is extreme passive behaviour during trauma. I stop thinking and feeling and behave like a puppet.

If we were perfectly ok mentally, we wouldn't need a therapist. So I'm sure trauma therapists won't judge you if your symptoms come out in therapy.