Emotional Flashbacks

[Horst]

Sometimes an overwhelming urge will start one for me, like when I feel tiny and and sort of non existant..In the grand scheme of things.
Sometimes feeling small and frail in comparrason to the rest of the population of the world, starts me on a feeling of dissociaion...
I find this all so hard to put into words.

I know this isn't a religious website, but in my case, if I didn't have my faith, life would have no meaning. Whenever I feel as you described above, I reflect on my conviction that my life followed God's plan. The peaks and valleys were necessary checkpoints, along the journey. Some of the valleys were exceptionally deep, but still had to be crossed. I'm grateful for them all. Hang in there.

 

[Bubba]

I just stumbled across this thread and read the article by Pete Walker. I can totally identify with the following:

"Because most emotional flashbacks do not have a visual or memory component to them, the triggered individual rarely realizes that she is re-experiencing a traumatic time from childhood. Psychoeducation is therefore a fundamental first step in the process of helping clients understand and manage their flashbacks. Most of my clients experience noticeable relief when I explain Complex PTSD to them. The diagnosis resonates deeply with their intuitive understanding of their suffering. When they recognize that their sense of overwhelm initially arose as a normal instinctual response to their traumatic circumstances, they begin to shed the belief that they are crazy, hopelessly oversensitive, and/or incurably defective."

I have always been an extremely emotional person and completely oversensitive. I break down so easily and now I believe it's because I am being emotionally triggered. Right now I am having these emotional flashbacks quite often. I can't really relate them to an exact trigger - just all of a sudden I will feel overwhelmed and start to cry. I can't seem to handle anything that is the least bit emotional. And it is SO DRAINING! I feel like I am exhausted all the time - which I think is because I am having nightmares every night (even if I don't remember them) - I wake up exhausted.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I'm very sentimental. Sometimes the guilt goes so far back, and runs so deeply, I want to contact people, as well, and apologize to them and tell them how much I love them and how sorry I am for the things I did or didn't do. I don't consider these episodes flashbacks, but they come on very strongly and have a profound effect.

I tend to want to contact people to tell them how I'm feeling and try to explain whats going on in my mind.

The reality is that I've isolated myself from these people because I feel in danger around them.

But during an emotional flashback I feel like I'm back there and it was only yesterday we talked and that I need to explain all this danger I'm feeling and reveal why. But when its been over a year since we spoke, to contact them and bring all my anxiety into their life is sort of crazy.

So I'm re-living the feelings from the past, rather than thinking about the past sentimentally.

 

[melusine]

Does anyone have some coping techniques to offer? I am experiencing debilitating emotional flashback as have to be in daily contact with my ex-husband in order to handle a crisis with my son who is having his first manic bi-polar attack.

Though I handle my son's violent bouts with no emotional flashbacks, contact with my ex-husband leave me feeling like I have been beaten up both physically and emotionally.

As I cannot afford my usual sleeping it off technique since it is essential I bounce back fast to deal with my son, any fast acting coping technique would be more than welcome.
Thank you for your help.

 

[Horst]

I tend to want to contact people to tell them how I'm feeling and try to explain whats going on in my mind.

I hear ya. I experience that sort of thing myself. I haven't spoken to some of 'those folks' for three or four years.

 

[Moona]

Just getting started in "reaching out". It's amazing that there are so many ppl out that that sound so much like me, like you all haven't said that a thousand times.

I'm kinda just going through a lot of the comments, stories, etc.

Like many of you I can't hold a thought for long.

I also find that reading stories from others who post tend to trigger a response in me.

Re. the flashbacks, they can be overwhelming. Sometimes I see them as these doors that have been closed in a dark room for so many years. They will just pop open to release things, or lure me close to open them. Never with good endings. This is very interesting and somewhat comforting knowing I'm not alone.

Thanks for sharing...