All The Different Kinds Of Flashback

[Blues in NYC]

Yes, that'll be right... it's dissociation. Just so much to learn...

I can't remember it half the time.

dust

Regardless of what we call it, key is that each of us learn to manage our symptoms whatever they may be! :wink:

Have a good one today if you can, Dust! :occasion:

 

[dust]

HA! You are right - we are the specialists you know!!! It is ALL about management, that is what I am learning. A lot of us have been managing symptoms for a long time already. I guess we are just learning healthier coping strategies than the ones we developed ourselves.

Have a good day too! It's really overcast here.

 

[2notbedefeated]

Has anyone ever had their asthma triggered by these ofactory things? It does me and the smells seem so "there" and "real" but sat times I just can't breath and it freaks me out. Finally I got an inhaler and it helps alot.

It sure helps to know that I was not alone in my olfactory hallucinations. They drive me nuts. I've had them a very long time. Even when I was teenager. At the time I didn't know that was what they were.

I ask others if they smell smoke (most distressing), cologne, mildew muggy smells. I would ask others if they smell thus and so, they'd say no and I would think there was something wrong with them.

Well, now at least I know what they are and that they are not real.

 

[wattle]

Sometimes I get the smell flashback, I used to think it had to do with the medication, a side effect. The smells I get are fire, which freaks me out no end. Sweet pineapple smell, no idea why and male BO, very unpleasant but a very strong trigger for me.

I also get the video loop thing happening on a regular basis. Then there's the quick flashes, like snapshots, very fast, very frustrating.

All fun and games...not.

 

[a3a2]

Glad I stumbled onto this forum. I had a break from the flashbacks after therapy, but find them starting up again after a long break. I don't know how to describe them. I felt like I was completely losing my mind till I got back into therapy.a3a2

 

[jol]

I'm new to this and don't really know what I'm doing. I want to know if anyone feels this way.

But, mine come in 2 forms really. The first is quick snap shot, generally brought on by a trigger - this sometimes leads on to a panic attack - but I can usually overcome that type of flashback. But the worst, is when it comes, first I get a squeezing of my heart, and I'm seeing the flashback in a sort of movie reel, and I'm right back there. I have little or no awareness of my surroundings and I feel a pain like I'm being punched in the stomach, and everything that happened is actually happening to me all over again. I can't stop myself falling into the panic, and I basically have to ride it out until it's over. I want to stop it - but I never seem to be able to.

Does anyone else feel like this?

 

[sassyfras]

I have olfactory hallucinations that drive me nuts! At first I wasn't sure what it was, but eventually it's what led me to the diagnosis and down the path that is PTSD. I smell food and spices though. Really good food at least, it's not too disturbing, just smells of bubblegum, carnival food, meals I haven't eaten in years and years so distinct and so weird!! At first I was worried about brain cancer or something, but then the other dissociative symptoms and flashbacks started. I hate this. I hate it so much.

 

[PirateJohn]

When I get flashbacks, it's usually a few seconds or a minute or two when I forget where I am. Usually this happens when I'm performing some sort of repetitive and/or automatic task such as running or watching TV. My body will keep doing what it's doing, but my mind will be totally elsewhere. Usually it's either replaying some scene over and over or it's an imagined, similar scene playing out in my head. Sometimes I get so into it that my body actually starts to react, usually making me shudder or convulse.

 

[Dimethyltrip]

For me they mainly tend to be one of these things;

- An emotional sense of displacement into the traumatic situation that leads me to believe that I truly have been transported there again. Therefore feelings of distress, thinking I am going to die, feeling my heart beat out of my chest. It can include physical/tactile responses like recalling pain.

- Sometimes the above can be paired with visuals, however brief and irratic but often ridiculously detailed. Usually it's either or, I'm grateful to say.

My left ear always bothers me tremendously when this happens.. it's impossible for me to even describe the noise I hear. Oftentimes it leaves me with an earache.

It seems also to happen during particular moments; mainly at night when I am already vulnerable from nightmares and am lying in bed, but also during intimacy. However it really can happen at any time, though thankfully it generally doesn't happen randomly... but I seem to be the most susceptible when I am dealing with other stress factors and am vulnerable.

 

[sassyfras]

I can relate...it's really the scariest thing for me out of everything. Some things seem so uncontrollable. I know it has to eventually be dealt with though...just not sure when that will be.

 

[Artista]

This began for me, now 8 months or so ago. I had no memory of the trauma. Now the details are immobilizing. I can sometimes smell things for hours and it can make me very ill. The visuals and the sensations have become more vivid as do the details. I had been on a stretch of new FB and now it's been a month since really vivid ones that made me forget all time and my place in the now. Freaky and a little scary since I have young children! I do believe they help keep me present or bring me back more quickly because my brain must over ride it and know it isn't good when they are there... I must be conscious on some level. Wish I could pick and choose. It is just why I am trying to tackle this best I can. Get whatever control I can muster over my reactions... no matter how small.

 

[ClairBear226]

Jol, yours and mine sound a lot alike. And don't worry, I don't know what I'm doing around here yet, either. ;-) I wrote something about mine months ago. I've always thought that my flashbacks are very much like I would imagine travelling back in time to be. It sounds incredibly hokey and weird, and like maybe I watch to much Star Trek... but here's a "cut and paste" of what I wrote, dated 4/26/10:

A flashback is not the same as a memory. A memory is when you think about somewhere you’ve been or something that has happened to you. “‘Oh, I remember when we went to Italy. They had the best food.” This is a memory. A flashback is when your mind firmly believes you are actually in Italy. You hear it, you feel it, you smell it, you touch it, you taste it. Your body may be in present day 2010, but only by technicality. As if the engineering world has just not caught up with sending the body to where the brain is located.

I can sometimes tell when one is coming on because I get very warm (unless maybe that's an early hot flash? lol!) and a little nauseated. I can hear sounds that are in the present, but they sound metalic and sort of distant and muffled, like they're on the other end of a long hallway. Otherwise, I really have no connection to the present. I am in 1988 lock, stock, and barrel. Mostly it's for a matter of seconds to a minute or two, but I've had some really bad ones that have lasted much longer. My husband tells me I just stare off into space, and breathe a bit faster. The most disturbing part is, I scratch the living hell out of my left wrist, trying to get a sensation of a rope to go away. Sometimes it's bad enough to draw blood, which serves as a bitter reminder later. I usually shake like a leaf for awhile afterwards. If I'm somewhere public, I need to be alone. If I'm around my kids, I go into another room afterwards so they won't notice. The worse they are, the worse the "aftershock" of feeling depressed is, both because of the flashback itself, and the "dammit AGAIN? When am I going to just be done with this?" thing. If I can't be alone for awhile afterwards to process and "come down" from full fear mode, I get irritable, and can feel like biting someone's head off.

I'm still trying to find a way to prevent them - or at least delay them - or snap out of it. I've heard people have some success with peppermint oil (smelling it to keep them grounded) or holding onto a piece of ice, but I don't get enough warning to implement that. They come on quick.