Are Your Flashbacks Ever Distorted?

[Klo]

It happened again today. I stepped outside to have a cigarette this morning, and there was this intense smell of gas, like the type that would come from a stove. There wasn't anything outside that would cause this, and the world is covered with snow right now, no people were around. My anxiety started going up as I could not find the source of the gas, I walked around the whole outside of the house trying to figure it out. I went back inside to make sure the gas wasn't in the house, and it wasn't, but when I went back outside, the smell was gone. There was no gas. So smoked a couple cigs on the porch to calm back down. These experiences suck. Online searches say it could also be a brain tumor, gee great.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi Klo,
How long have you been getting the smell flashbacks?

Tumor is pretty unlikely at your age, by all means ask a doctor, but don't let your thoughts drasticise on it, as flashback is a very likely explanation.

Just on the subject of age, I was guessing that you might be middle age... Then I saw your approx age in another thread.

Without wanting to spoil your acceptance of being single. You are at an age now where the guys are ( hopefully) more mature than many are in their teens or early twenties.

As @BlueOrange mentioned, there is also aesexual, and, if you your inclinations stretch in that direction, girls.

 

[Klo]

Hi Klo,
How long have you been getting the smell flashbacks?

Tumor is pretty unlikely at your age, by...

I can't pinpoint exactly when they started, but I believe some time in early adulthood. The year after I graduated from high school was when things all really started to dive downhill in general, so I tend to associate the start of many symptoms with that time period, though. It's always chemicals or people's houses. Sometimes it's one of my grandparent's houses and I haven't been there in several years, not since I was an older teen, but when I smell it, I recognize it instantly.

I'm 27. If my life ever gets turned around, I might consider dating again in my 40s. That seems to be when a lot of people are going through divorces, so I could just slip onto the scene with everyone else. Most people my age that I know around here are currently in the midst of their first attempt, they are married or getting married, having children, buying their first house, etc. So I figure I will take the next 10 years getting myself sorted out and then see what the 40s hold.

 

[Anarchy]

That sounds a lot more like flashbacks than a tumor.

The if, when and how is entirely up to you, but don't feel that you have to wait.

There are always opportunities, and regardless of what our inner critics tell us about being unacceptable, or getting dumped as soon as something weird comes out into the open...

There are plenty of people here who will tell you that the real experience surprised them. They were accepted, they didn't get dumped.

 

[Sideways]

@Klo - It's slightly different, but I have flashbacks that are triggered by the smell of meat pies...

*pause* yes, let's get it out of the way, haha, an Australian getting triggered by the smell of meat pies, how dysfunctional can you get!?

The reason that I mention it is that you seem (I may be way off) concerned that because the smells are obscure, they must be distorted, rather than accurate connections to your trauma. I'm really not trying to make light of the situation, because my flashbacks can be really crippling at times, but for me, I wasn't abused by meat pies, I never had meat pies thrown at me or anything, but the smell is still an accurate connection to my trauma because I was often aware of the smell of meat pies from the school canteen nearby when I was being abused.

The link between things that can trigger my flashbacks and the trauma itself can often seem obscure. But now that I understand it better, it makes sense to me. I used to feel incredibly paranoid about the fact that there were so many kids just outside, hanging around the canteen, when I was being abused, worrying they were close enough to hear or see through the blinds, and also thinking how lucky (urgh, yuck) I was to be having special lessons while all the other kids just stuffed their faces with the same old lunch; and I was also quite aware at the time of the sounds and smells associated with that. So, the smell trigger for me sounds obscure, but when I look at what was happening and feeling and aware of at the time, the pieces fall into place.

Are you aware of any link between, say, the smell of gas and your trauma?

 

[Gadgie]

There is a smell that triggers me as well, and that is the smell of pork being cooked on a Bar/b/Q, sounds daft I know. It triggers me to an event that I can't seem to get out of my mind?

To cut a long story short, we were returning back base in our ambulance, in the early hours of the morning, after being on an emergency job.

We came round one of the many corners on this twisty and dangerous road, a car with four youngsters had skidded off the road and hit a dry stone dyke wall head on, and burst into flames!

The driver had got out, but because it was a two door car, the two females in the back, and the male in the passenger seat, couldn't get out, the door had twisted, and the whole front of the car was in flames, all three were trapped inside the wreck.

There was nothing we could do, the flames were too hot and large for us to get anywhere near it with our modest fire extinguisher?
The screaming, and smell of burning flesh, will never leave me!...........That's why I always get that trigger

 

[Powder]

I'm sorry, Klo. I've experienced my arms getting defensive without bothering to clue my brain into the fact someone in there felt the need to fight off a massage therapist.

I was very freaked out. My massage therapist was not, but it was before I had the flashbacks that told me what essentially happened, so it caused major cognitive dissonance for me (was I raped if I cannot remember but feel like I was!?).

I have not been able to enjoy the idea of a massage since. The event of dissociation of my body during the massage was that distressing. I cannot imagine how this must have felt to you in an intimate, personal relationship. That is so distressing to even read about happening to you that it upsets me.

It makes me so angry that an innocent child can enter this world and be so hurt by its parents and/or other adults that it destroys their ability to move on from that pain into a sort of normal life with sort of normal abilities to engage in everyday pursuits.

That said, I do feel the need to fight back on all of it. I went through a time when sex with my marriage partner became triggering to flashbacks. I worked through it daily and found ways to recognize and defuse the dissociation prior to sex so that wouldn't happen. I've had to find a lot of 'mind games' to distract myself with in life to be able to function.

I don't think I'm "normal" anymore, since being on the forum for years, and listening to my husband's thoughts, I think I am functioning but quite "damaged" beyond what I initially realized. However, I recognize that a damaged person can still have potential and can set themselves up for success in a lot of areas of their life, but never can I completely undo what's been done.

The scars are part of life. They tell me how long I've been alive on this planet, how much violence I have endured, but not why. The inabilty to get to the "why"s of life is something everyone must learn to let go of or they will go crazy. Trauma seems to force me to endure the mysteriousness of life, and to simply accept that it is not possible to know what I want to know about myself, the past, people around me, etc.

My main reason for desiring this knowledge is to try to feel safe. It causes me to go OCD-ish with my PTSD. Instead, I work on telling myself that I am safe, as safe as I can be, and that it's okay for now.

 

[8888]

Yes. My PTSD is from abuse as a young child. Everything happened before age 6 so it's really hard for me to have accurate memories.

 

[anonymous]

Hi Klo,
I may have it wrong but the way I understand it is as follows: traumatic "memory" gets stored as disjointed sensory and emotional information and in a way that means the brain doesn't recognise it as memory. It sees it as happening now. It hasn't been processed and filed away by the cognitive part of the brain. Any part of that sensory and emotional memory can rear up and that happens when we hit a trigger of some sort. Usually something sensory - something we have seen, heard, felt etc), thought or something emotion based. The whole experience doesn't have to rear up. One or more aspects of it can pop up. Usually emotions are attached but sometimes they aren't. Sometimes it is just emotions that come. And emotional intrusion.

The way I understand it a flashback is when you are experiencing something from the inside not the outside. In other words it is happening now rather than you realising it is something you are recalling. The way I understand it smelling something now is a flashback. You feel it is happening now. You can't tell it isn't. Eventually logic starts telling you it isn't as there is no source. I guess in my mind I think of these as partial flashbacks. The more of those senses are involved the more intense generally for me. Someone is free to correct me if I have it wrong.

If you can't recall your trauma then that is a best guess as its possible of course that it could rather be a hallucination which apparently isn't uncommon in PTSD. Hallucination would be if it doesn't relate to an actual experience you had. It sounds very likely from what you say that it is reliving material. I have partial "flashbacks" of things I don't remember happening to me. They are only partial. I have no visuals. Just sensory and emotional. I freeze and my vision goes black. I have a sense of what it is about and the triggers are specific to it. I also have a sense of my age because of certain things. And it correlates with a time of my life I have no memory of. I however don't have detail or context at all. It's like a knowing and not knowing. Very complicated and hard to verbalise.

I guess what we have to do is have patience. And trust in our brains that they know best. That more will be revealed if they think we are able to cope. And that in the meantime we try not to jump ahead and just deal with what is there.

I hope you find some way to manage these a little.