Flashback To A Feeling Not A Specific Memory

[Deleted member 38242]

My PTSD got ripped open this year, and I got flooded with everything I didn't remember, and had to live through it again. I don't get flashbacks to specific memories as much now, but I have this horrid tortured feeling that is tearing me up inside on and off throughout the day. It is excruciating mental and emotional pain as well as physically draining. I'm not sleeping much, and I am suffering from depression. I am getting on prozac as soon as I can, but I don't know what to do right now. I quit drinking, but drank twice this week to not feel so tortured.
I don't want to slide into addiction.
Has anyone else suffered from flashbacks with no thoughts, or mental phenomena; just pure excruciating torment as if it's happening all over again just like it was the first time?
What do you do?

 

[NorthernBare]

I call that body memory when it happens to me...I have meds...fast acting lorazepam if it is too much. Mine most often come with flashbacks. I was triggered recent too and got help right away. Is like starting over...overwhelming.

 

[illusionist]

Yes, I have.....stemmed from a time where I had much confusion, grief and pain. As a kid I didn't understand.....but as an adult reliving those emotions I was able to break the intense emotions down and make sense of things that I didn't back then.

 

[shimmerz]

Yes. Absolutely. The ones that come with a memory without the somatic stuff are so much easier. It's like a walk in the park now.

 

[Gs172003]

Yes. Absolutely. The ones that come with a memory without the somatic stuff are so much easier. It'...

When does that happen?

 

[shimmerz]

When does that happen?

When you learn how to release the somatic stuff properly. I used to curl up in a ball and the energy would just circulate and recirculate through my body. My shaman and another therapist taught me how to open up, visualize it flowing out of me, feel it and release it. It was hell, but so worth it.

That's when the visual flashbacks became more pronounced. Then I would do things like gasp unexpectedly, shiver like I had been dunked into an ice cold lake, stop and rub my eyes or start breathing funny. That's about the extent of it for me at this point.

 

[littlestar]

I had the same thing and also with some memories, but excrutiating. I had to take zoloft and klonopin. it has only been until recently that I have been able to work on the somatic stuff. just starting to do that again. Its overwhelming starting over again.

 

[sun seeker]

Has anyone else suffered from flashbacks with no thoughts, or mental phenomena; just pure excruciating torment as if it's happening all over again just like it was the first time?

Yes, all the time. It's my most common kind of flashback.

Being able to label them as such, and connect them with the original events (I have more than one kind) does help. As for how to fix it, well, I'm still working on that.

 

[ladee]

I have recovered very few memories and have been on this journey a long time. For a very long time it drove me even crazier than I was.
But I learned to deal with the triggered feelings. The smells. Etc. It was and still is very hard because I have no pictures to go with the feelings. But it's all I have so that's what I try to heal.
For the past few days my anxiety has been thru the roof. No idea why. I hate PTSD.

 

[sun seeker]

As for how to fix it, well, I'm still working on that.

I should add, in case the above was discouraging, that I haven't been doing this all that long. The first of what I'd call body flashbacks began roughly two years ago. Some have resolved as I work through the memories that created them. Others, not yet. Then I have flashbacks that are more to very specific emotions, and I have just in the past few months begun to connect those with events. Those haven't resolved, but I haven't given them a lot of time yet. There is hope.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

Yes, it's called an affective flashback.

While some flashbacks are complete (visual plus auditory plus affect) others are not. Sometimes the visual, auditory, tactile, and affective components of the memory are stored separately; when that happens, a partial flashback occurs.

You are having affective flashbacks. This means you are being flooded with the feelings that occurred during a particular event.

 

[shimmerz]

Sometimes the visual, auditory, tactile, and affective components of the memory are stored separately; when that happens, a partial flashback occurs.

That is super helpful to me. I never did have a name for them. They were crazy making and this makes sense as to why. Thanks Buckaroo.