Hey...question About Flashbacks

[Danica]

Hey everyone...I'm Danica, I am new here. I have a question about flashbacks. Does anyone ever have flashbacks unrelated to traumatic events? I feel that after the initial traumatic big flashback something just changed in my brain and now I have flashbacks a lot that are random. I will randomly feel like I "time travel" to another point in my life. It could have a trigger, like a song, or it could be totally random and come out of nowhere. These are usually non significant things that I shouldn't even remember, like playing a video game as a child or sitting in a parking lot looking at billboards, or standing in a line waiting to buy something. Sometimes even random dreams pop into my head for no reason, dreams I may have had years before that I didn't remember and then they suddenly just pop into my brain for no reason. And they are always very powerful, like I will smell everything and feel the same as if I am actually there and when I "get back" I feel like I time traveled to the future. Does this happen to anyone else?

 

[Girl3]

Oh way on the flashbacks being random and like you've been away somewhere, and time has passed. It may feel like a cool thing and a curse. Some things are not like the textbooks - especially because the original PTSD diagnosis was reserved for military/combat related issues. The things that make us susceptible to PTSD probably also make us susceptible to the flashback phenomenon. I try to see it as a positive thing - the brain creatively dealing with my crap.

 

[Tabula-Rasa]

Hey, Danica! My own "flashbacks" (my therapist calls it "flooding") are combat-related, but I know at least one person with PTSD that has flasbacks as well and her PTSD originates from a violent rape and stabbing. In both of our own cases, the flooding happens after some sort of trigger. Mine is specific: Heavy helicopters. The sound sends me back 22 years in a room with blue shafts of light coming through a swiss cheese wall and the memory is more powerful that whatever it is that I'm looking at.

For my unfortunate friend, the triggers are more of a mystery, but she has the definite feeling that "something" happens and then she's "gone" and "back there." Unlike my own flooding, her's comes in fragments: Short bursts that super-impose themselves, then she's back.... then another short burst, etc. She doesn't always know what the memories are of, but she was able to establish that it's "first person narrative." My own flooding is, too.

I know it's disorienting, but I've been actually working to try to take a step back as much as possible and try to remember all the details... especially, where the flooding "ends." As soon as I can (breathing and grounding) get myself back, I try to write as many details as possible about both the flooding and the events preceding them. Of the events preceding, I try to remember what I can of all five senses especially smell, taste, sounds. I try to remember what I was touching and what the texture of that touch was like. Lastly, visual.

It hasn't been easy and, frankly, sometimes even writing about it and trying to remember has sent me back into a panic attack.

That's what I do to give me clues, but you should definitely talk to your therapist before doing anything. Everyone's experience is different and the cause of flooding can be different. If your therapist suggests trying NOT so hard to explore this, yet, then trust them if you can.

In any case, good luck. I know the experience is disorienting, but you may be able to manage it and even use it to find closure with whatever you experienced.

 

[Girl3]

If your abuse hisotry is extensive - like mine - sexual and physical abuse as a child, rape, beatings by significant others - many things can trigger you - movies, songs, smells, touch, sounds, feelings. Life is a trip - and for some of us, it ain't always a good one.

 

[Nighthawk]

Welcome to the forum:)

 

[Danica]

Yes, that is how I would describe it...a cool thing and a curse. It is really cool yet really disturbing because a lot of times when I find myself back in the present I feel like I don't belong. The first time I felt like I was 14 again and I was all the sudden an adult and I really just couldn't function in my life anymore. I was suddenly married to a man and had a child and I felt like my child should be my little brother, not my son. So I lost all attachment to the present. It was crazy. Growing up I suffered emotional abuse (and a little physical) and instability and 14 was the worst age where I just lost it...then later I found myself in an abusive marriage and someone from my past triggered something and all the sudden I thought I was 14 and felt like I had time traveled and had to relive those times. Now luckily for the past year or so I have not had any flashbacks to traumatic times, but will have random ones. They make me sad sometimes though...because sometimes I will feel like I am in college again and will be a bit confused when I get back and I am an adult again...but then I remind myself that I have the best thing in the world now, my kids. Usually the random flashbacks happen when I am under stress or depressed about something in the present time. (I am now going through a divorce.) But it is getting better and I think I am starting to handle those episodes better. I just don't want to have a traumatic flashback! I hate those. Anyway, for a while after the first episode I was extremely depressed and would become suicidal every few weeks. That lasted for about two years. Anyway, thanks for the replies. :)

 

[butterfly10142]

My fiance has flash backs and sometime acts them out. Last night was a real bad night. He was alone in the house, the kids and I where on the porch he was watching a football game, and my 10yr old went to get a drink he came running outside to tell me that something was wrong. (we try to keep as much as we can from the kids) I went in and he was sitting in front of the fridge with the door open he didnt respond for awhile so I just sat across the room in the floor and waited. he woke up calling his buddy's name. The more I tried to tell him that is was just us the more agitated he bacame until he focused on me then relized where he was. The docs have told him that with treatment the episodes would get worse before they got better. Any advice besides take your meds and go to group counseling? Another question I have is when he is acting out his flashbacks am I in any danger? He doesnt remember them all the time sometimes he is just aware that he isnt where he was before them. I asked him and he told me that he doesnt know for sure just to move away from him as quickly as possible and I do I am careful not to do anything to startle him and I move away until he focuses on me and speaks to me.

 

[Girl3]

As an anesthesiologist I have taken care of PTSD patients - staying calm, staying out of range of being hit, speaking calmly in a soft tone, repeatedly saying the patient's name and where he/she is, reorienting the person - these are techniques I have used successfully. As a PTSD patient, my worst times are coming out of nightmares where I am "in" my traumas: my natural defense mechanisms are at full tilt. Grabbing, shouting, confronting - those are things you definitely do not want to do.

As for the danger - it depends. I almost killed a person who broke into my home while I was asleep because of startling me - I grabbed a knife and nearly stabbed the person to death. I have woken up patients who wanted to be held and others that wanted to attack. Weapons and potential weapons need to be locked up or thrown out especially if your fiance tends toward being violent when dissociating.

People tend to be true to their reactions over time: patients that wake up violent always wake up violent (unless given an antipsychotic) and patients that wake up needing cuddled and tearful, always need held. At least in the 20 years I've been taking care of people, that is my first-hand experience. Maybe that and 80 cents will get you a cup of coffee. Sorry for the last bit of sarcasm - I was on call last night and worked today. 36 hours without sleep makes Jack an a%%h)(#.

 

[Tabula-Rasa]

@Girl3: I always had an image of an anesthesiologist (probably from media) as person that didn't even have to now patients' names. The fact that you even knew that your patients had PTSD goes a long way to making me rethink what an anesthesiologist is. ;) Your advice is fantastic.

@Butterfly: I think your husband will agree that your primary concern is your and your childrens' safety is everyone's prime concern. That said, Your husband didn't seem violent.... just lost in a powerful memory.

Girl3 is right about that, I think: memories of violence result in violence. Memories of grief result in grief.

I want to go further and say that PTSD can come from ONE trauma, but it can also come from SEVERAL traumas. You can have several symptoms, each related to one specific trauma over a period of time.

For my own example, I suffered complete and utter Amnesia two and a half years ago from some kind of massive trigger that was buried for 20 years. That trigger, I know, centered around the death (bomb) of Elzbeta when I was 19. Nightmares center around the edge of what I can remember. Helicopters trigger a memory of everyone dying in a room except me... and sometimes, with helicopters, I'm back in that room.

I remember my therapist pulling me back from a flooding and she had the same understanding and gentleness as you. You did the right thing. You sat on the floor with him. You kept your distance (good, because "touch" is a different memory sense than the vision or smell or auditory memory). My therapist used a technique of asking what I saw and, when she caught something that was in her room, she asked me to focus on it.... it depended on the fact that I was self aware: aware of being in her room and THAT place.

Butterfly, darling, I don't know what I would do without the understanding, love and sympathy of my girlfriend, Kelsey. She understands not to touch me when I'm coming out of nightmares and, like you, sometimes sits on the floor with me without touching or pushing ... she's a voice I can focus on... and I'm getting better and better at coming back.

@Danica: It's interesting that you feel that you're "time traveling" to the "future" rather than the past. All your other comments are about a past (when you were 14) and alternative "paths." You mentioned your own kids.

You're safe here. Can you tell us more about your children and your life? Boys? Girls? How old?

You talked about going BACK to college ("... I am in college again ..."). Can you talk about what happened to make you leave?

Sorry, but if you can just write about it, it makes it easier for everyone else to know how to support you. We're all "there" and understand and have been through our own version of 'something.' Sometimes, YOU'RE the one that's going to be helping one of us.

What happened?

 

[Girl3]

When I was in medical school in the 80's, they would suggest to the students who had no personality or people skills to go into anesthesiology, pathology, or radiology. I was called aside by one of the more well-known chairmen that I would be wasting my people-talents in anesthesia. But the more I know about my patients, the better I can take care of them. So I ask about a lot of stuff. I have several PTSD patients that I take care of on a routine basis because they have ongoing needs, and they have learned to trust me. The experiences in my life that gave me PTSD make my heart that much more open to those who entrust me with their life.

 

[Tabula-Rasa]

Just out of curiosity, how does an anesthesiologist have patients with PTSD or even come into contact with "patients" enough to know that a patient has PTSD? I'm also curious about who might have told you to become an anesthesiologist because you "had no personality or people skills." '80's or not, it seems a strange criteria that someone would place. Frankly, I personally know several successful Md's with NO people skills bordering on Narcissistic tendencies that would (my opinion) be psychotic killers if it wasn't for their choice of becoming a doctor with a God complex. ;)

I married INTO a family of doctors before I divorced them (and my use of the plural is a long story).

I'm an INTJ. If you want to look up TypeLogic and INTJ on Google, you can read about it. I'm asking these questions, not to attack you, but because I'm trying to figure you out and there's pieces missing.

Girl3, I'm not attacking. However, part of my problem is that I see when things aren't fitting and I know what an anesthesiologist is only in the context of surgery. I just... cannot understand how an anesthesiologist has PTSD patients. I'd LOVE to understand more... What is it that's not fitting? Otherwise, anesthesiologists don't have PTSD patients.

(And I'm probably going to get kicked off this site for this?)

 

[Girl3]

Anesthesiologists have patients. I just happen to know if mine have PTSD - just like I know if they have diabetes or heart disease or hypertension. The ones with PTSD are often difficult in terms of anesthesia because being vulnerable makes them disintegrate emotionally. When I see certain meds and ask a number of questions, I can usually get from a patient that they either carry a diagnosis of PTSD or they have it and don't know it per se.

In medical school they tested us with the Meyer's-Briggs personality test - it was new to use on medical students to help them determine what they would be good at - and I was an ISFJ. But still - I had these great "people" skills - I could talk to anyone, about anything. Part of my chameleon-like ability to blend or fit. So one of the chairmen who thought I should go into some discipline other than anesthesia told me I was wasting my attributes on a specialty that didn't require a personality or bedside manner.

Anesthesiologists have to know everything that your regular medical doctor knows about you as well as what the surgeon is going to do. A good anesthesiologist is the ultimate doctor. I have to know you meds, your illnesses, your recreational activities, your vices, and what your surgeon has planned. And because my patients range from 1 day old to 105 (so far) - I have to know pediatrics, geriatrics, and everything in between.

Taking care of a woman having a gynecologic procedure who has been raped and tortured is very different than taking care of a woman with no history who is having the same gynecologic procedure. I take the time to know my patients. Anesthesiologists have patients - not gallbladders, thoracotomies, liver transplants, etc.