Effective Techniques For Stopping A Flashback?

[crazy8]

Has anybody identified techniques that effectively stop a flashback in its tracks?

I am plagued by emotional flashbacks, where I suddenly feel afraid, overwhelmed, extremely angry, tense, and I experience a very intense emotional pain. My whole body hurts with intense pain, and I often vomit because it hurts so much. I have zero ability to think logically during this time, and I never know if it will last 10 seconds or 5 hours. I can't even speak to tell anyone how I feel during these times because my brain is so "shut down" as the painful emotions take over.

I wish there was something I could do. I have become accustomed to taking sleep medications and drinking alcohol to numb this feeling in the evenings; sleeping makes it go away. Has anyone discovered a technique to make flashbacks stop in their tracks, when all logical thought/cognition is completely suppressed and you can't even think straight? I wish there was a magic word I could say to make it all go away...

 

[keifer]

I wish I knew that myself. I'm taking a yoga class to help with memory loss and get more in control. I wish it were easier. I wish they empty flashbacks would stop myself.

 

[Barberian]

I don't have flashbacks often anymore. They have always been very brief except when they first started. I don't know how to stop them, but to help prevent them I try to stay as grounded as I can when I think I might be vulnerable. Doesn't always work, but I feel it helps.

 

[franciemarnie]

The few times I have had full blown back-thru-the-time-tunnel flashbacks, I was helpless to stop the chronology.

But if I am triggered and having an emotional flashback, I don't bury it. I act on it immediately as safely as I can. If my heart is racing, I need to run! if I have to, I'll run in place. If I am angry, I might scream into a pillow and I will find a way to punch something safely - speed bag, pillow, air. I feel for what my body is telling me. I will tell it thru my actions - you don't have to shut down anymore. You can move, run, kick, yell, punch out now.

I won't hurt anyone else and especially not me.

I refuse to screw myself over and shut down. I release the energy and that kills the worst of the emotional flashback for me.

 

[zaniara]

I act on it immediately as safely as I can. If my heart is racing, I need to run! if I have to, I'll run in place. If I am angry, I might scream into a pillow and I will find a way to punch something safely - speed bag, pillow, air. I feel for what my body is telling me. I will tell it thru my actions - you don't have to shut down anymore. You can move, run, kick, yell, punch out now.

I refuse to screw myself over and shut down. I release the energy and that kills the worst of the emotional flashback for me.

Oh, thank you! That was great tips!! :) I have never thought about doing any of that, really. (Even though I have a few times, because I haven't been able to stop my self.) I just try to "behave" and keep on top of it- but that doesn't work much at all.. So again: a big thank you for great tips!

As for how to stop flashbacks.. Well.. I'm not sure I'm really able to: since they're not from the part of my brain I can control. But I do try to ground my self as much as I can as soon as I can. Sometimes, when I'm having a lot of flashbacks(I'm working with EMDR and sometimes that activates a lot of flashbacks: multi-flashbacks really: which are really horrible!) I try to write a list down afterwards(when I'm back in the reality enough to be able to write/think at all). I do not go into details, but I try to write a few words about them down(sometimes that triggers the dissociation though and sometimes it take a long time for me to finish writing such a list): and then I take that list with me to my therapist.

That is like handing over the keys to the "Pandora's box" though; and I'm really reluctant to do so.. But then again: being alone with it all really sucks as well: and I do trust my therapist. Somehow handing over these "keys"(he usually make me try to read them out loud: but that is hard!) somehow make those particular flashbacks decrease or go away afterwards.

 

[zaniara]

I need to add this: Somehow refusing to let the flashbacks make me back down, but face them more "head on" somehow actually makes me feel more in control and thus a bit safer(despite still being so scared :D ).

I recognize the kinds of flashbacks you described, and I can be in severe pain as well from them. And I can't control that. But when working with those memories with my therapist sometimes "pictures" and other parts of the memories come back, and then I can process it and heal it. And after that there is no more flashbacks. (not from those traumas anyway.. But I have suffered so many traumas, so I have more work to do before I'm free.)

Alcohol though will not help you heal much. It can likely worsen the symptoms. Do you have a therapist? In that case discuss these things with him/her.

I wish there was a magic word I could say to make it all go away...

I can wish for that sometimes too.. But I have never found any magic word that makes it all go away immediately, but the words can be pretty magical though when we use them to try to share stuff like this with a trained and good trauma-therapist. Because then they can help us heal, and eventually make us healed enough to not have flashbacks and feel good again(or for the first time in our life: I have never lived a life without PTSD).

 

[crazy8]

you don't have to shut down anymore. You can move, run, kick, yell, punch out now.

I hadn't thought of it that way before. Maybe those words have some "magic" in them.

 

[crazy8]

Barberian and Zaniara:

What do you mean by "grounding" yourself?

 

[cherryblossom]

@crazy8 - you might want to read Grounding 101

 

[franciemarnie]

Only thing though as far as "magic words" go - the limbic brain in charge of all those triggered feelings literally cannot understand any words. It did not evolve that far. You can only "tell" it anything with the senses - by action, movement, visuals, etc. That's why thought and language don't have any effect whatsoever on those intense emergency states.

 

[Tom Hicks]

I've heard that inappropriate humor that brings a subversive commentary of society and sophistication in its simplest form might be sufficient to help one get out of confines of issues surrounding internal unresolved issues.

By this I mean being mooned:p

This might be more for rage oriented flashbacks. Depending on the nature, intensity and origin it might not help. But, try and be mad about minor crap when your best bud lets you know you are not alone in this BS we call life when he has shown you and everyone else in the room his "commentary."

 

[Meadowsweet]

Half the battle seems to be to recognising that it is a flashback. But when I have, I find that focussing on everyday objects and naming them helps me stay here and now.