Flashback But No Memory?

[Venusian]

Does anyone else have flashbacks of an event they can't remember? I was writing something a little while ago and realized that I have. I have the memory of the flashback and remember knowing that it really happened during the flashback but I don't have the direct memory of the event. With other flashbacks of a repressed memory the memory remained with me but this one I don't have that memory. Even writing about this I can feel my anxiety spiking because I am thinking about it. The flashback was of something very painful both emotionally and physically so maybe it is something that I just am not ready to process. Does this happen with anyone else?

 

[DharmaGirl]

Yep, quite often. They usually start out that way and as it goes on I remember more or I'm able to ask famity members what they remember. It is difficult. I am now having more detailed flashbacks of things I have lightly touched on in therapy. The flashbacks are worse too. I also believe when the flashback is not clear, I'm not ready to process. This is how I drive therapy. It is not the most pleasant way, but it works for me. If I tried any other way I think I would become psychotic from the horrible information.

 

[madmax]

Thank you for your ability to identify and communicate this process.

 

[macca]

This is the only kind I have - flashbacks without memory that is. Both visual and emotional, as now I'm being treated I realise that there are emotional ones too. I've had them almost all my life. There is utter terror associated with them, including the memory of the flashbacks in childhood. The only memories that seem connected are regarding what appears to be traumatic re-enactment play. I have no way to verify or not whether something happened, but my T said there's much to strongly suggest it, even though I may never know.

 

[bell]

I have them, too, in certain situations. They are so horrible, that I have isolated myself in terms of dating anyone for a long time. To be honest, I don't want to remember what my body has repressed (and being the helpful sort that I am, I was too wasted to remember anything, so pulling for that memory to never come back). I just want to heal those flashbacks by working with the energy itself. I know what I need, someone to stay with me and keep me present, now it's just a matter of finding someone to be there. I know this is what I need on a deep gut level, which is a step forward.

Did this flashback "tell" you what you might need to work with it, so to speak?

Also, I'm sorry that it happened to you, too, @Venusian. They are super scary and I wouldn't wish them on anyone. :(

 

[Venusian]

The flashback I was referring to was of being electrocuted, at least that is what it felt like. I remember knowing that there was pain , a lot of pain during one part of the trauma but I can't remember the pain itself.

@bell I think that question you asked was right on, the flashback told me what I couldn't handle remembering directly.

 

[hoopflier]

I'm new here and found the site because I was looking for information about this question, and a related one. It's taken me a while to figure out that they are flashbacks, because like mecca, they are the only kind I have. My other question was about saying things during flashbacks, e.g. I say things like "I don't want to!'--but again, I have no memory associated with this, though it sounds like I mean it when I say it.

 

[Abstract]

Venusian,

I have this that falls in the big chunk of my childhood I don't remember. I have absolutely no memory of it and the flashbacks are partial flashbacks and I can't get a story from them. There is a little part of it that is verified by others that I checked on it but it doesn't make sense to me other than that. Just writing this makes me want to freak out just a little. I don't have body memory experiences with any of the other events that I have re living with. As far as I can tell.

I am sorry that electrocution may be part of your story. I have heard it is very painful and traumatic. Thanks for the thread.

 

[zaniara]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean with what you wrote. :sorry: A flasback of something you don't remember? Could you explain more? I have more rarely had flashbacks of things I remembered before that(I 'split' my personality up when little and most of my childhood was blank/'black' to me) but after the flashbacks some pieces of the memories come back and have after the first flashbacks of them been pretty difficult to push away(it takes running like hell)..

 

[Venusian]

@zaniara like you, most of the flashbacks I have are either something I do remember happened or the flashback revealed a repressed memory that came back when it was over. The flashback I mentioned already I have had a couple of times and it is very intense. During the flashback I feel like I was 5 years old and I know when it happened. I don't remember ever being electrocuted like that. I have had the occasional shock but nothing to the extent of the flashback.

What I do remember of the trauma, I know there was more pain in one part of the morning than in other parts but I can't remember the pain. It is the foggiest part of the trauma, when there were 2 attackers. When I have tried to explain it to therapists I said it is like giving birth, you know there is a lot of pain, overwhelming pain but afterwards you don't remember it but you know it was there. If you did remember who would have a second child? I went through 3 births and I don't remember the pain but I know it was there. The flashback I had would explain the pain I know was there and some of the things I do remember. I remember twisting around in the arms of one attacker and begging him to get me away from the other. I remember being more terrified of one attacker more than the other. I remember those little bits but I don't remember being electrocuted by her.

When I remember the electrocution I remember the flashback as a recent event where other memories that were revealed during other recent flashbacks I remember as actual memories of older events. @macca wrote it in her post from one of her therapists

there's much to strongly suggest it, even though I may never know

. There is other physical evidence that it happened but the doctors can't say for certain what caused the internal scars that were found during surgery a year ago. Nothing else that happened in my life would have caused them. And I keep going back to why all of it was suppressed for so many decades, 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?

 

[Venusian]

@hoopflier I don't know if this is the same thing, there is a phrase that is part of a recurring nightmare I have, it has such a strong emotion of dread connected to it. Sometimes when I am awake, the intrusive thoughts come rushing at me and before I can stop myself I say the words, not a flashback but close enough. If the phrase you speak has a strong emotion connected to it could very well be something you said, an important part of the memory of the event. Flashbacks do not always have the full spectrum of senses connected to them, some are visual, some emotional and some are audible. I am sorry you are experiencing this too, it is very unsettling and very confusing.

 

[hoopflier]

Venusian, thanks for your description; your experience sounds similar. I don't have thoughts, just the words, but they rush out before I can stop myself, with strong emotion. I'm sorry you know what this is like--unsettling and confusing is exactly what it is.

In fact, that's why I started thinking of these "verbalizations" and physical gestures as flashbacks--because it was too unsettling to think they could be anything else. While I don't have memories that explain them, I can deduce that some could be related to some very early experiences, so it was oddly reassuring to consider them to be flashbacks. Zanaria, I hope that explains at least what I mean a little bit more.