Flashbacks, Fata Morganas

[Freedomfighter]

Not sure if I spelled the title correctly but I really want to know how others with PTSD experience their flashbacks. Because I have noticed that physical characteristics of the predators that used to torture me seem to jump around me. Seem to be lurking around the corner, when in actuality they are not really standing there, seem to talk when in actuality I am just experiencing flashbacks.
Have often jumped because my brain tells me there is a threat just within my periphery, how do you guys experience flashbacks? Do you often think the threat is right there, just waiting?.....

 

[BlueOrange]

My muscles know that I'm having a flaskback before I do - they tense up as if someone were about to hit me.

 

[Deleted member 33052]

Mine have never been so overt - that sounds terrifying to me! Have you talked with a therapist about them?

 

[BlueOrange]

I assume that question is for me, and yeah, we've discussed it in detail. Depending on which muscles tense up, I get clues about which event I'm being reminded of, and that gives me some clues about how to deal with what's happening.

(If I can't bend my leg, that's because I feel neglected. If my face is paralyzed, that's a memory of being slapped in the face, which links to social anxiety.)

I don't experience these things as frightening, so much as embarrassing and inconvenient. When the symptoms are powerful, it becomes impossible to deny that something is wrong. Nothing quite like being asked "What happened to your leg?" And answering "I broke it 30 years ago" to kick start a conversation about PTSD that I might have preferred to avoid.

I guess, to begin with, it was pretty frightening. Not so much the leg (which was easy to understand) but the face, throat & abdominal pain. Harder to understand, and therefore unnerving & scary.