Do I Have Flashbacks?

[Onefineday]

Because I am only still learning about PTSD and how it is relevant to me, I am finding some things confusing. I am still trying to work out wehter certain things are relevant to me, and even when I find information, I sometimes get confused. Maybe someone can answer this for me.

I always thought a flashback was like a halucination or something. But from what I am begining to think is that perhaps it is not always quite that? I don't know if what I experience would be regarded as a flashback or something different.

One example would be- whenever I smell alcohol on someone, especially that alcoholic smell, I get this rush that goes through me and am remided of my past. I don't halucinate, I am still aware of reality and that it's just a smell, but all those emotions I felt of hopelesness and frustration and feeling depressed and small come flooding back, as stong as it would be if it were reality. All the thoughts of everything come back in my head. I guess the best way to describe it would be like when you smell something that reminds you of your childhood and you get a rush of nostalgia and almost feel like you're back in the past, at least emotionally.

Then there is my problem with men- whenever I have a guy come onto me I get this feeling of disgust. I feel the same as if I were 12 years old again having someone twice my age trying to have a crack on me, that feeling of revolsion that I had as a kid, not only towards them but myself.

Are these flashbacks? I'm still looking for answers to so many things, this whole thing is just too complex for me. :wall:

 

[Paloma]

In my book they are flashbacks...emotional ones. I think of flashbacks as like being in a parallel universe. I am usually aware of who I am and that I inhabit the here and now...but there is this powerful, transparent overlay of sensation or feelings from the past trauma...like I have a foot in both worlds. It can be very intense or mild and it scares the hell out of me when I don't expect to get triggered. I have also had times when I was way more immersed in the past experience and had trouble keeping a foot in the present.

Knowledge and support like you will get here helps reduce the fear of this complex disorder.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yes, those are emotional flashbacks.

In my experience, doctors and therapists aren't very good at explaining what flashbacks are. I have been to quite a few over the past year, and nobody explained to me that I was having emotional flashbacks. At the time I thought that flashbacks were purely visual. (I don't have visual flashbacks or nightmares, so for a time I thought I didn't have PTSD)

 

[Onefineday]

Thankyou for an answer, it will help me a lot, especially when I have to attempt to explain it to someone! haha

 

[suzie q]

My experiences have changed over time. What you call a non-visual flashback is what I know as a "body memory". This is because some of my early child abuse was when I had no verbal skills, therefore I remember them by my body. Could be smell, taste, movement, pain, etc...

In my later abuse, I was old enough to understand what was happening to me, therefore, I have emotional, visual, and auditory memories. I spent alot of time in therapy working through these because I was at their mercy. Some people thought I might be having what most people call a flashback. I had a large drug history, so I understood that to be a vision inside my head of something weird. I did have those, but very very few, and only in the beginning of stopping my drug use.

I was told to trust my gut. When I would have a memory, I usually would feel really uncomfortable in my own skin. If it lasted more than a day, I would work with my therapist to find the reason. It was much safer than processing on my own. Also I kept a dream journal and a memory journal. This helped me explain to others without forgetting something.

Hang in there, it feels scary in the beginning but once you have help, you will feel less anxiety. Good Luck!!

 

[becvan]

This information thread might be helpful: [DLMURL]http://www.ptsdforum.org/showthread.php?t=5085[/DLMURL]

bec

 

[wolfalohalani]

How I understand flashbacks is this way. A normal memory is made up of different factors - the sensory information of what you saw, heard, and sensations, the emotional context of what you felt, and the narrative story of what happened. When a memory is too traumatic to be processed as a whole the brain tries to store it piecemeal - so the memory gets broken down into its separate aspects and the brain attempts to store it that way.

The problem is, it can't really be stored that way - so the pieces keep floating around. The brain keeps trying to store it, and tries to re-assemble the original memory from the stuck pieces and whatever else is happening at the moment. Any new experience might seem like a good candidate - so if you smelled alcohol at the time of the trauma, and you do again, you might suddenly remember what happened, or feel the emotion you felt at the time.

The theory of how EMDR works is that somehow the switching of attention back and forth across the midline while all the aspects of the original experience are in awareness engages the 're-assemble' process, and since all the aspects of the experience are there now the memory can actually be moved down into long-term storage, where it will act like a normal memory and not like traumatic memory fragments.

From what I hear, people who have had traumatic experiences in childhood tend not to have the complete, technicolor flashbacks that people who have been traumatized in adulthood have. The brain apparently isn't mature enough - something for us child abuse survivors to be grateful for maybe. I've never had a flashback like that (touch wood) though I've had traumatic experiences in adulthood, so I wonder if some people just handle trauma differently than others.

wolfalohalani

 

[Spacechic]

Flashbacks..

Everyone has their own idea or theory behind them. Interesting that apparently childhood trauma brings black and white flashbacks. For me this is not the case. Mine are in colour. And sometimes with a soundtrack. I hear voices , yelling etc. I feel as though I am there , back then, with all the sensations such as tension fear etc.

How does one cope with this?

I have told my psychiatrist about these and he hasn't said much to me about them. I think that I just have to put up with them till they go away, hopefully. I have also told my psychologist about them and how distressing they are. He is going to provide me with some insight into them and how we may tackle them. I honestly feel at times like I have lost my senses. It is incredibly difficult to live in a normal way when these things happen.

I try to distract myself and ground myself when they happen. To a certain degreee this works.

I am wondering how other manage with flashbacks and voices etc?

 

[blueangel371115]

When I have one, I blink twice and count to ten while breathing slowly to get my heart rate down. I tell myself it's not real, that I am safe.

 

[Abstract]

Onefineday,
Thanks for the thread. I am in a similar situation to you.