Do You Feel Like You Might Wake Up And Be Back There?

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I put this under flashbacks and dissociation, because I presume it is in some way dissociative, possibly (probably) a form of derealisation, if it isn't and needs to be moved, feel free to do so.

Does anyone else have the feeling that real life is just a dream (I know it isn't but it feels like it) and that at any moment you might wake-up and be back there/then - when the trauma was happening? It feels like a cloud hanging over me and sometimes I feel more aware of it than others, but I'm terrified that I will wake up and none of this has happened and I'm still being abused with no way out?

Is there anything that has put your mind at rest or managed to get rid of this feeling? Like I say I don't really believe it, I do know that this is real, but the idea haunts me and part of me thinks that it might really happen.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

I have felt this way too. I just wanted you to know you aren't alone.

 

[ms spock]

Yes I feel that too.

 

[Leah123]

Yes, I have had that. I too am aware it's not really possible, but that doesn't mean the feeling of discomfort about the past isn't valid. I think the key to ridding myself of that feeling is to fully examine the frightful moments, expose them to the light of day, talk them through with someone safe, process the emotions still left there, and be able to do a reality check.

In the short term, well, I just find comfort sometimes in writing it down, being extra mindful of where I am and grounding myself with the different senses (what do I feel, see, hear, what are the facts right now: time, date, place, etc.), or taking care of myself, turning on a bright light, wrapping up in a blanket, etc.

 

[franciemarnie]

Yes I have known this too. It felt like it was literally simultaeously happening in a parallel universe that I could access in a second if I could find the door. Very haunting feeling.

It would pass with time. I knew no solution in those years it was prevalent.

Now it is a much more distant sense and no longer alarming. I don't get it much anymore.

 

[greenleaf]

I have been having something possibly similar with two sets of feelings, recent "normal" ones but also a totally different emotional space, but there aren't exactly memories attached that I can tell anyhow, and it's pretty confusing.

 

[NovemberStar]

I just posted something related to this - I have an ongoing feeling that the past and present are mixed up. My intrusive memories / feelings / images happen in the present but feel real. Lately my T has started appearing in the mini flashbacks - so things get mother mixed up. I then worry and start really fearing that maybe my T isn't real at all, and / or I will wake up an d the past 30 years are a dream and I will be right back there in the past.

It really is like the past and the present TOUCH. It's the only way I have been able to come close to describing it.

 

[Chincho]

I feel like this sometimes too. It helps me when I have bad days because I'm certain that if I do wake up, I'll know what to do to avoid the abuse.

 

[ms spock]

It is the reason I walk in the morning in a panic a lot of the time.