brokenpony
Silver Member
some of you may remember some of my other posts about my flashbacks. they are getting worse, and i am wondering if i am on the edge of something potentially (psychically) dangerous. i was hoping to check in with others who have had amnesia for CSA, as this is a unique experience. the abuse coming up is very severe. i suppose that when it comes back in flashbacks after amnesia, vs. something that you have been carrying all your life, there is maybe a more immediate understanding that it is “that bad.” you don’t need to reframe to see that it is really bad. and because of it being “that bad,” i had issues accepting it was not some kind of elaborate invention of my mind. the flooding started months ago, after i read something triggering, but the flashbacks had already started before the triggering thing.
so for a long time i refused to believe this was real, part due to how severe it seems to be. but i have after over a year of rumination an additional assessments accepted that i do have DID and had amnesia for incest CSA (grandfather, not in my home). as i have grown to accept this more and more, the somatic flashbacks have grown more and more intense and vivid and “real” feeling, and more information has been revealed through the somatic flashbacks as well as visual (both first and third person, depending what is happening) and verbal/written intrusions that are disturbing. once the anal flashbacks started and came with visuals overlaid on them, i think i began to truly accept that i was dealing with something different. i had been raped as an adult many times in different ways, but never anally, yet the sensations were very clearly that.
the somatic flashbacks aren’t just vague pains in the pelvic area, to be clear, but are very detailed and include the phantom feeling and motion of rhythmic penetration and hands and tongue, the body rocking back and forth/up and down, pain up in the pelvis when the penetration is deepest, waves of intense vertigo (especially when the penetration is feeling deepest), nausea, fluids, pressure on thighs, feeling like he is on top of me, radiating soreness in the pelvic region and/or rectum that lingers even when the motion has stopped or paused. the penetration motion is in all orifices and sometimes overlapping. it all seems to start “in media res,” as if i am “tuning in” to rolling events that are constantly ongoing “somewhere else.” the moving visuals are coming with more smells and sounds, but so far they seem to be just accessed inside the head, not phantom-type like the physical sensations. i still know where i am, even when i feel like i am “over there.” it’s like straddling two worlds. but i am semi-oriented to the present.
i will try not to get into the DID thing so much because i know this is the PTSD forum, but there are some dissociative disorder issues at play here that are making it hard for me to stop them from happening. the first is that the “not real”/“not me”/“not my life” disconnect is strong and i cannot seem to figure out a way to ground away from them. when they start, nothing helps to stop them, and i think this is because they are coming from a “dissociated part.” however, this in turn keeps enough emotional distance from me and the flashbacks to function through them when they are not super severe. i may zone out a bit, lose my place in a conversation, etc., but no one around me would know. but as they become more vivid, this “working through” is getting harder to do. staying “present” is becoming harder. i try to avoid getting to a point of no return by doing the only thing i can do to keep them from overwhelming me, which is to walk around, as a kind of counteractive motion. if i do get “stuck,” sometimes calling someone on the phone helps. i have called my therapist before and another time a friend called me and helped me move out of paralysis. but it is just like an oceanic force sometimes.
second, because of both the DID and the amnesia, i have a strange relationship with them. in some ways they feel like they keep me connected to the “new reality“ of the trauma, i.e., that it really happened, that some people do block out such “betrayal trauma“ until it is safer to process it and i am one of those people, even if it feels like my life has jumped the shark. they also keep me connected to parts of me that i did not know i had, but whose pain i have felt all my life, without knowing the origin. and i weirdly appreciate them in that way. that they help me stay honest and aware. without the “reminders,” i fear i will stop believing they (both the memories and the parts) are real, return to denial and the “old reality,” and set myself back. this is compounded by the memory issues i have, where recent events come to feel far away from me in no time at all. i also really want the rest of it all to surface. i want the child parts to surface. they are suffering. they say such horrible things. i talk to them but they don’t seem to hear me. so i feel like i am willingly choosing to remain in hell, in a way, for a purpose.
but—the past week or so has been really immersive in new ways, and i am becoming more afraid. as they increase in intensity, my vision becomes more staticky (visual snow, i guess?), i get stuck in paralysis/freeze and i feel like i start to dissipate/dissolve and derealize more severely. i lose more time. i feel like they have… changed.
i am wondering if anyone has dealt with this particular situation, with this kind of highly dissociated flashback for CSA, that feels both semi-immersive but “not yours.” not ”you.” like you are receiving it, like you are a vessel for it. i feel like i am an intersection of sorts for merging timelines or realities or… i will use the word… “alters.” i feel like i am a willing participant in this process, but now, after this week, i am fearing more serious decompensation. what was the evolution of this like for you compared to me? what am i supposed to do next? if you had amnesia for CSA, did your partial flashbacks ever become fully immersive? did you experience flooding to this degree? how did you find what helps when the go-to stuff doesn’t work so well? my therapist is trying to help, but it is so complicated. i know she is concerned. as you can see i have an analytical side and can sometimes think my way into a labyrinth, making things harder than they need to be, but this is sure feeling difficult to navigate.
so for a long time i refused to believe this was real, part due to how severe it seems to be. but i have after over a year of rumination an additional assessments accepted that i do have DID and had amnesia for incest CSA (grandfather, not in my home). as i have grown to accept this more and more, the somatic flashbacks have grown more and more intense and vivid and “real” feeling, and more information has been revealed through the somatic flashbacks as well as visual (both first and third person, depending what is happening) and verbal/written intrusions that are disturbing. once the anal flashbacks started and came with visuals overlaid on them, i think i began to truly accept that i was dealing with something different. i had been raped as an adult many times in different ways, but never anally, yet the sensations were very clearly that.
the somatic flashbacks aren’t just vague pains in the pelvic area, to be clear, but are very detailed and include the phantom feeling and motion of rhythmic penetration and hands and tongue, the body rocking back and forth/up and down, pain up in the pelvis when the penetration is deepest, waves of intense vertigo (especially when the penetration is feeling deepest), nausea, fluids, pressure on thighs, feeling like he is on top of me, radiating soreness in the pelvic region and/or rectum that lingers even when the motion has stopped or paused. the penetration motion is in all orifices and sometimes overlapping. it all seems to start “in media res,” as if i am “tuning in” to rolling events that are constantly ongoing “somewhere else.” the moving visuals are coming with more smells and sounds, but so far they seem to be just accessed inside the head, not phantom-type like the physical sensations. i still know where i am, even when i feel like i am “over there.” it’s like straddling two worlds. but i am semi-oriented to the present.
i will try not to get into the DID thing so much because i know this is the PTSD forum, but there are some dissociative disorder issues at play here that are making it hard for me to stop them from happening. the first is that the “not real”/“not me”/“not my life” disconnect is strong and i cannot seem to figure out a way to ground away from them. when they start, nothing helps to stop them, and i think this is because they are coming from a “dissociated part.” however, this in turn keeps enough emotional distance from me and the flashbacks to function through them when they are not super severe. i may zone out a bit, lose my place in a conversation, etc., but no one around me would know. but as they become more vivid, this “working through” is getting harder to do. staying “present” is becoming harder. i try to avoid getting to a point of no return by doing the only thing i can do to keep them from overwhelming me, which is to walk around, as a kind of counteractive motion. if i do get “stuck,” sometimes calling someone on the phone helps. i have called my therapist before and another time a friend called me and helped me move out of paralysis. but it is just like an oceanic force sometimes.
second, because of both the DID and the amnesia, i have a strange relationship with them. in some ways they feel like they keep me connected to the “new reality“ of the trauma, i.e., that it really happened, that some people do block out such “betrayal trauma“ until it is safer to process it and i am one of those people, even if it feels like my life has jumped the shark. they also keep me connected to parts of me that i did not know i had, but whose pain i have felt all my life, without knowing the origin. and i weirdly appreciate them in that way. that they help me stay honest and aware. without the “reminders,” i fear i will stop believing they (both the memories and the parts) are real, return to denial and the “old reality,” and set myself back. this is compounded by the memory issues i have, where recent events come to feel far away from me in no time at all. i also really want the rest of it all to surface. i want the child parts to surface. they are suffering. they say such horrible things. i talk to them but they don’t seem to hear me. so i feel like i am willingly choosing to remain in hell, in a way, for a purpose.
but—the past week or so has been really immersive in new ways, and i am becoming more afraid. as they increase in intensity, my vision becomes more staticky (visual snow, i guess?), i get stuck in paralysis/freeze and i feel like i start to dissipate/dissolve and derealize more severely. i lose more time. i feel like they have… changed.
i am wondering if anyone has dealt with this particular situation, with this kind of highly dissociated flashback for CSA, that feels both semi-immersive but “not yours.” not ”you.” like you are receiving it, like you are a vessel for it. i feel like i am an intersection of sorts for merging timelines or realities or… i will use the word… “alters.” i feel like i am a willing participant in this process, but now, after this week, i am fearing more serious decompensation. what was the evolution of this like for you compared to me? what am i supposed to do next? if you had amnesia for CSA, did your partial flashbacks ever become fully immersive? did you experience flooding to this degree? how did you find what helps when the go-to stuff doesn’t work so well? my therapist is trying to help, but it is so complicated. i know she is concerned. as you can see i have an analytical side and can sometimes think my way into a labyrinth, making things harder than they need to be, but this is sure feeling difficult to navigate.
