Flashback But No Memory?

[macca]

@hoopflier it has happened to me as well, with no memory to pin it to. In fact, it's what led me to finally go and see a T, even though I'd had "nervous breakdowns" before, I was too stupid to realise I had PTSD. A few months ago I was triggered in an argument with my husband, and suddenly was struck with terror and "escaped" the house, drove off wailing and crying and saying "he's going to hurt me" like a little kid. I felt like a little kid too, and I felt unable to think, just felt terrified. My husband has been angry with me to the point of punching the wall, but he has never harmed me. I wouldn't normally say the word "hurt" in a situation where I felt that level of terror, as it is a gross understatement.

the thought that kept going through my head," if no one noticed it couldn't have been that bad". If I had gone through something like that flashback how could anyone not have noticed? How could my parents have been so oblivious to it all?

Oh wow, this goes back and forth in my mind all the time, despite the evidence saying something does seem to have happened. It just brings up so many questions and doubts. You are minimising yourself despite the evidence - did your family minimise you? Maybe you're doing the same to yourself, inadvertently?

 

[Venusian]

You are minimising yourself despite the evidence - did your family minimise you?

Maybe I still am on some level. I was so young and had gone through something that was terrifying and everyone was just angry that I was there. First, one of the attackers and then the first "safe" person I went to. She was angry that I was there just when it was time to go home, she wouldn't listen and made me sit in the corner while everyone else got ready to leave. My mom was too busy when I got home and I had to look after my younger sisters, she didn't have time for me and probably yelled at me when I didn't want to. No one noticed anything and I buried it. There had to have been marks, there had to have been a change in me but no one noticed. I asked my mother when I told her what happened a couple of years ago and she said that she didn't notice. She did not suspect anything had happened. I am not that good an actress.

The flashbacks are bad, there may not have been marks and maybe I passed out or I dissociated but I still don't have the actual memory. Maybe that is a good thing and I just have to accept what my body is telling me that my mind can't. I have to learn how to live with it.

 

[moomena]

Yep, quite often. They usually start out that way and as it goes on I remember more or I'm able to as...

I do but it`s not as much of a memory as it is the feeling there`s a memory i can`t remember. And it`s triggered by guys in red things that have something big on thier face head area. i want to figure it out but I just can`t get it.

 

[Venusian]

Sometimes I wonder about timing on some of these posts. I was thinking about this topic again and forgot that I had begun this thread so long ago. I haven't posted here for more than a year and then I see a notification because someone is also trying to figure this out too.

I still haven't remembered the actual event that I wrote this about but I have begun to have more flashbacks of the time that is still blocked out. Just little snippets, more postcards of what happened but still it is mostly blank but there have been more of them in the past few weeks than in the past two years. There is still no timeline to this part of the morning, they are still jumbled together and just vague enough to make me wonder if they are real memory. They feel real when the flashbacks happen but not when they begin to fade again. It may still just be too painful, still too traumatic to process but it is a beginning. I keep wondering how so much could have happened in a single morning.

 

[jas]

I have struggled throughout my entire life for as far back as I can recall with
anxiety and depression. I have memories at earliest of age 3. Most of my childhood memories aren't very happy ones. I remember always being sad, scared and feeling extremely lonely. I was an only child and I felt like they didn't treat me like a child. They never played with me, never encouraged me to play with other kids and never took me to any event such as the fair or whatever else kids in my elementary school would boast about. At age 18, my anxiety was at it's highest with pressures of graduating high school and what my next move would be. It got so bad, I started seeing a therapist. My primary care dr. also thought I should be medicated.. the xanax I was prescribed made me feel numb, like a mindless hollow shell and flashbacks started to flood my mind. I stopped pills and began mediation. From there, I began having flashbacks of events I had no memory of happening to me but with the flashbacks came very dark and sad emotions and a sensation of being scared. I am 22 years old now and my childhood memories shape every thing I do today. My bf tells me something out of anger and I go off the deep end screaming and crying and feeling like a child with no control, only deep emotion and a great want to be hugged tightly. I'm so confused. I want to seek out the truths of my childhood so I can get some closure instead of being taken back by sudden flashbacks when I'm having a fantastic day.

 

[Mia Yates]

Does anyone else have flashbacks of an event they can't remember? I was writing something a little whi...

I don't know but that happens with me too, I have little flashbacks of things that I know didn't happen and I know they are not real... although I don't think they are? Idk if I have ptsd or not but I think I might.

 

[Muted]

Does anyone else have flashbacks of an event they can't remember? I was writing something a little whi...

Yes, I have a picture of the event in my mind. Usually for me it's like a movie, but this one is only a picture.