Does anyone else "put off" flashbacks until later?

[Elle_Would_She]

This is a weird thing I do, and I'm wondering if anyone else does it?

Sometimes when I am in public or at work or something, I'll get triggered for a flashback. I can feel it coming on and know it is not a safe time/place for it to happen, so I hold it off. I usually get a little dissociative while I'm fighting it off. It's not so bad that I don't know where I am or what's going on or anything, I just feel like I'm going through the motions.

Usually I can only hold it off until I get to somewhere it's safe to deal with it. For example, when I make it home and sit down, it hits almost instantly.

For some reason it just makes me feel like... almost a fake? I don't know. I feel like if I can control it sometimes I should be able to control it all the time. I don't know. Just wondering if this happens to others.

 

[Fadeaway]

I don't think I can do that with flashbacks, bu any emotional reaction to a stressful event like a car accident or being in a store where a robbery is taking place or another pretty serious situation, I go in to total zen, yet hyper efficient mode. Like I freak myself out because I am so chill , but once my brain knows it is safe? I am twice as bad and being able to handle something and can't function for days.

So it sounds to me like a similar situation where the brain just knows it isn't safe.

 

[Megan903]

Yes, I do this almost exactly! I can also somewhat gauge how bad the flashback will be, and when I feel one coming that I can tell is just going to rock me to my core, I've been able to hold those off for days sometimes until I get to therapy where I don't have to deal with it alone. I'm pretty convinced that the longer I put them off the worse they get, though. I also can't control them all the time and don't understand why. It's good to know someone else is having the same kind of experience, though. I understand what you mean about feeling like a "fake."

 

[Nathanael]

I can do this too but it's only working on smaller ones, the big ones come whenever they want and without a warning. Some of these postponed flashbacks just vanish completely and come back weeks to months later, it's rather annoying.
A former therapist told me that it's a form of deliberate dissociation and he personally thought that it's doing more harm than good because it trains the brain to use dissociation in distressing moments, something that therapy tries to deprogram. So you are working against your treatment.
I don't know if that's universally valid or if it depends from person to person but it do makes sense considering the nature of dissociation and how the brain develops this ability in the first place.

 

[mylunareclipse]

I do the exact same thing! When I get attached by flashbacks, I just dissociate for a while, until I let myself go somewhere where I can feel the whole thing. If I am at work, this means the bathroom floor at work :(

 

[Gamergirldelux]

Yep. Almost every day. It's a bad habit but it keeps me safe but it also stops me from healing. It's so complicated

 

[CaraG]

I repressed my sexual abuse as child. I have been dealing with memories off and on for 17 years, I am 34. I do assessment with inmates to place them into an appropriate program. We go through drug usage questions, a risjk to re-offend assessment, and a mental health assessment which includes a trauma question and follow up questions. I try to tell them I just need to know was it multiple and before or after 18 or both. Sometimes they just come out with it. I make people cry every single day. It's exhausting. So, yes I have been able to go feel a flashbacks coming on and combat and throw myself into the questions and think to myself they need help keep going. Keep going. I place a prayer in there. The thing is it never came back. I have had other flashbacks since then but that one never came back. I can be with therapist and i will start having intrusive thought and I will shake them off. They don't come back. If I am alone at home or when I had a significant other I couldn't keep them from coming. They were brutal. So, the answer to your question yes and no.