Hmmm, well I definitely experience both the emotional flashbacks and sensory overload, but am still unsure as to their exact relationship to each other in my case, if indeed there is a relationship at all. I am more prone to the sensory overload when I am already emotionally triggered or in any other way stressed or overwhelmed, and so I suppose that in most cases the overload is the effect or outcome of the old cup overflowing with whatever else is going on.
I too have to battle hard not to lash out senselessly at those who invade my space, be it emotional or physical, and by lash out I again mean either physically or verbally. I am a little better at thephysical restraint thanI used to be (with a few memorable exceptions), but am incredibly lacking in self control with the verbal backlashes, seemingly more and more so lately, to the point at which the fear of impending verbal confrontation has become a very real and very legitimate additional layer of dread almost every time I go out.
My most recent spectacular sensory overload was last Tuesday when a fire alarm went off at the hospital while I was attending a day patient programme there. I was already horribly emotionally triggered due to earlier events and was consciously aware that I was teetering on the edge of overload, almost unable to sit within a normal proximity to the person beside me, irritatedly bothered by the chatter of my fellow patients, alternately hot and shiveringly chilled by the temperature in the room etc.
Oddly, rather than evacuate the building when the alarm sounded, as per usual custom, we were all ordered to stay where we were, hence to remain cooped up in a small room within which the alarm was absolutely unbelievably, indescribably loud. I mean, I am used to fire alarms and have heard many, but can honestly say I have never heard one this loud.
Not only was the noise physically painful, but it tripped some sort of emotional trigger in my head and plunged me into a kind of sensory panic that felt nothing short of life threatening to me. In the end, dissociating out of the rest of the session was nothing short of a relief.
The only cold comfort was that I was not the only one similarly affected, and our poor old group therapist was left with half a dozen horrendously distressed clients to deal with when the alarm was finally turned off.
Horrible stuff.
MD
