What Does A Flashback Feel Like In Dissociative Ptsd?

[xraydave]

Is it like a dissociative moment, where we fall prey to a random disconnected lot of thoughts, memories, flashes and images? is it like a number of vague transient emotions such as an emotional pain and suffering?

This is what it felt like for me, and it consumed me all over again. and all it took was a random trigger like a perception (not grounded in reality or rational thinking), that others are 'looking down on me' or 'see me as strange' in some way. and i was back in the rabbit hole again, as one would say.

i can say for certain now that, my thoughts are more organized and i can think clearer after some deep therapeutic realization.

Other than that, i want to know, how do you experience a flashback, as a person with PTSD who suffers from a dissociative/depersonalized version of it?

 

[Fadeaway]

You know those human-size plastic hamster balls? It's lik being in one of those only it's filled with water. I can't breathe, and I can't stabilize my equilibrium enough to get out. I am trapped, panicked but I can't tell which way is up or if the ball is rolling down a hill or not.

Maybe not the best analogy but it is what comes to mind at the moment.

Edit: My sleepy brain totally misread the question, and I was thinking you were asking about the dissociation that goes with a flashback. I'll leave that part up.

As far as what flashbacks are like for me, it is like I have two different brains running simultaneously. My normal rational brain is there, but I also have another brain running at the same time, my trauma brain.

 

[Sideways]

I'll preface this by saying I've got DID, so my head and my thoughts going completely nana on me is, yup, standard day!

Flashbacks are sensory stuff. Seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting or hearing parts of the traumatic experience all over again. Sounds a bit simple, but that's basically flashbacks in a nutshell.

The stuff going on in your head might be a response to a flashback (but more likely it'd be a response to a trigger). The flashback itself is a re-experiencing thing.

So all the nana going on in our heads, that's other stuff. Some of it's similar to flashbacks (intrusive memories). But a lot of it is other ptsd and/or dissociative symptoms. And wow, it can get messy in the noggin sometimes and it's impossible to tell what's up and down, let alone what's flashback and what's intrusive memory and what's dissociation and, and, and...

It doesn't help that we all tend to get pretty loose in the way we use the lingo, but flashbacks: re-experiencing part of the trauma via one or more of your 5 senses.

 

[Sideways]

I bore even myself sometimes.

Short version: flashbacks feel pretty much exactly what the original trauma felt like...(phew!)

 

[xraydave]

n

I bore even myself sometimes.

Short version: flashbacks feel pretty much exactly what the origin...

no worries. it has been interesting to read your post. i think this is exactly what i was experiencing an hour or two ago, it's like 'i dont know what's happening' but at the same time, experiencing so many different images, sensory issues, etc. all which have traumatic connotations to them as well. damn. it does get messy in the noggin as you said.

 

[shimmerz]

For myself, flashbacks are also somatic re-experiencing of a past trauma. My heart next to stops, as does my breathing, I curl up in a ball, all energy leaves me....

OR
if the flashback is less severe
I notice I start to drop things, take a quick breath that may very well have me coughing or sneezing or choking.

 

[Dissociated1]

I have had 86 flashbacks since January of 2011. Each one is a custom hell, more horrible than any psychological torture I can imagine. The best example I have ever thought of to describe them is the scene from Clockwork Orange where Alex is straitjacketed in the movie theater.
My flashbacks consume me mentally and physically. Curled up like a small animal, a spine chilling sense of vulnerability runs down the side of my face, neck and back. Depending on which of my child alters is having it, I let out a blood curdling shriek over and over and over, or my mouth opens to scream but the only noise is the forced rushing sound of air. They last upwards of an hour, leave me depleted mentally and physically and I can sleep for 10-12 hours afterwards. The triggers are complex; it often takes days to figure out what they were. I rarely have any idea what the flashback is about until weeks later when my mind lets me recover the details of the trauma it was related to. Sometimes my flashbacks are like a million dominoes falling over in an instant as my mind recalls a series of similar events and the full horror of the trauma crashes around me like a tidal wave.The wonderful gift is my flashbacks are like an emotional orgasm. There have been a handful of times I re-experienced one the course of a few days, but for the most part once my mind works past the original trauma, I have never have the same flashback again.

 

[Kailani]

I haven't had a lot of flashbacks but have had nightmares, intrusive thoughts, hyperarousal...One I consider a flashback felt like several head injuries I had had and it wouldn't stop. I have dissociative PTSD and I reexperience the pain of the abuse when triggered. I also start slipping into an alternate reality like the movie The Matrix. I also start splitting up and hearing another voice; my subconscious dissociated. Unless I do deep breathing for five minutes and EMDR for 10 min. It gets worse and worse. Grounding helps. Have a hard time separating a trigger vs flashback also.

 

[pixel]

xraydave, when you have a full-blown flashback, you will know it.
you will never forget it.

i have dissociative c-ptsd and only ever had one flashback, but i dissociate daily.

the flashback, as Shimmerz and Dissociated1 describes, feels like dying. imminent doom.
spontaneous combustion would be preferable.

dissociation's kinda the opposite. its helping you survive by removing you from the now, the memories, the emotions, the sensory perceptions etc.

 

[Tinyflame]

I don;t think I have much dissociation, but FB's (not " emotional FB's " ) but during visual/ auditory/ 're-living' ones I cannot/ do not see/ hear/ smell etc anything else. & I have no idea how long they last, under a minute I suppose. Sometimes they're fast, more like flashes. But when it stops I'm not oriented to where I am, fear if I've shouted out, etc. But mostly 'come to' with huge fear.

(Oops, ETA typos.)

 

[pixel]

wow Junebug

i'm so proud of you for surviving :tup:

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I guess it depends ... I have visual flashbacks ... Hiding flash.... Walking to school with my righ hand bandaged. Flash... There are others the pop in my mind at odd times and are gone and all I feel is an odd curiousity...
I have audible flashbacks... Talks in the kitchen about my brother playing and curious but it is not good for their little girl... Flash. No feeling except the intensity in which I listen... And the feeling this is important.
The I have the emotional flashback... In an uncomfortable situation with a boss or someone I feel has power over me and will abuse it. Flash... It's happening again... My reaction in the situation could be crying as I feel myself shrink or anger and I lash out. Both professionally inappropriate.
Then there is the "I become" flashback and I wake wanting a bottle, with the inability to talk only the image of a bottle flashing in my mind, or I might talk baby talk or feel very small and take the steps one at a time, both hands holding the railing for balance and support.
Then there is the audible flashback of others saying, where's the baby (me) and I will not be able to stop saying it as the panic rises out of control.
There have been the abuser flashbacks, where I am my abuser and hitting myself in the head yelling at myself.
There are the sexual flashbacks I had at times during sex where my sexual abuse kept flashing in my mind and I just waited for it to be over.
Some are high tension totally out of control and take hours to subside like the where's the baby or being my abuser. Many are like those old carrousel square negative photo cards. Flash and image then the next not much emotion.
So they can be very different .