Can't Eat During Flashbacks - Strategies?

[bluecat]

Hi Rosie,
I think I do a similar thing as your TV strategy when I read while eating. Never made the connection : )

 

[QuietNow]

Hi Bluecat,
It sounds like food issues were a theme in your household when you were young. Are you in therapy right now? Is the therapist beginning to get you to probe at some deeply uncomfortable areas? And have you talked to your therapist about this food avoidance? This is a type of food disorder, and it's common with trauma cases where food deprivation was once an issue.

I have to ground like crazy in a flashback. I learned in the hospital about frozen oranges. They work. Take a fresh orange, and just pop it in the freezer and leave it there. When you are feeling like you can't eat or having other flashback symptoms, pull it out and hold it. The cold yanks your state back to the present. As it warms, the orange begins to have texture and you can smell the orange smell to it. It's very effective when I'm dissociative or triggered into a flashback. It really works.

I find that unless I'm deeply dissociative, I can't hold the frozen orange in my hand for long. I have to keep switching hands because of the intense cold. But it's quite different than ice because it warms up to your body temp. (You will have to swap out oranges in a few months or a year or so because the thawing and refreezing does allow them to start to decay. But they last a very long time.) If I'm deeply dissociative, I can't usually manage to get it in my hands myself. But if someone puts it in my hands, I hold it without moving forever until it warms up. It does pull me back to the present.

The trick is to break the cycle so that you can think clearly for a bit. Then eat something, anything. Try to keep things made to eat in the fridge that you can just grab and pop in your mouth. I like the peanut butter/pudding idea too.

 

[bluecat]

Hi Bluecat,
It sounds like food issues were a theme in your household when you were young. Are you in therapy right now? Is the therapist beginning to get you to probe at some deeply uncomfortable areas? And have you talked to your therapist about this food avoidance? This is a type of food disorder, and it's common with trauma cases where food deprivation was once an issue.

I have to ground like crazy in a flashback. I learned in the hospital about frozen oranges. They work. Take a fresh orange, and just pop it in the freezer and leave it there. When you are feeling like you can't eat or having other flashback symptoms, pull it out and hold it. The cold yanks your state back to the present. As it warms, the orange begins to have texture and you can smell the orange smell to it. It's very effective when I'm dissociative or triggered into a flashback. It really works.

Hi QuietNow,

thank you for your response, I love the orange idea. I am getting some tomorrow and putting in my freezer, well one will have to do, I have a very tiny freezer : )

As for your initial question, I was diagnosed with PTSD 8 years ago and have been very dilligent about therapy. Over time things got better, not cured, but manageble, until the recent couple years, when I just started to sort of lose it again. I don't know what memory it is and why its constantly present but inaccessible at the same time, but I am frequently flashing back to my childhood during the time I almost starved. This didn't come up for the first time, I thought I dealt with it, but I guess something is still there that wants attention. And I will deal with it, but ideally with some meat on my bones : )

Thank you very much for your advice,

Bluecat