Hey...question About Flashbacks

[Tabula-Rasa]

It's Myers. Her name was Isabel. Isabel Myers. There was also Katherine. Her name was Katherine Briggs. The IS no "test" but merely a type indicator. They took great pains not to call it a test. Although the CIA uses the type indicator, no medical school in the USA uses it for applications and no chairman (no such thing in the medical field in the way you're saying it) would say this.

I DO think you suffered a traumatic incident and it's complicated by other issues. I'm VERY sorry, but if you want someone to be there on PM, I will be. However, you do not have a chameleon ability to blend in and you cannot NOT know PTSD from meds. You're also not an anesthesiologist, though it's possible that you work with one.

If you want to talk, I'll listen. I don't judge. Otherwise, ... I don't know. How does this end?

 

[Tabula-Rasa]

Sometimes, your patients have suffered the same thing as you and you're at THAT end of the table? Can't do anything? I've been there, Girl3. For me, it was holding an hand and I couldn't DO ANYTHING. I STILL CAN'T 20 years after that girl.

 

[Girl3]

Wow - now you are attacking me. I have been an anesthesiologist since 1994 and am director at a cricital access hospital. And yes they did use the Myers-Briggs to test us in medical school during our third year and counseled all of us as regards to the results. It wasn't used for entrance into medical school so you are reading into this much more than I wrote. They also wanted us to volunteer to take the MMPI when we were third year medical students.

Many times when patients are on a contellation of meds, I do recognize patterns that are associated with psychiatrists in the area treating PTSD - so yes you can surmise that a patient has PTSD. Just like I can surmise that a patient has bipolar I or II depending on their medicines - even if all they tell the nursing staff is that they have depression or emotional issues.

I got into medical school the old fashioned way - based on my college GPA, MCAT, and interviews. After I got in - even during residency - they tested us with non-standardized tests for a variety of reasons. One test I took as a first year surgery resident was a national survey on drug use by surgical trainees. It asked questions about caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, Qualude, DMT, PCP, and a host of other drugs. The tests weren't used in any official capacity to determine our placement into anything, but were someone's research project.

 

[amethist]

Girl3 and Tabula-Rasa

You are both now hijacking Danica's introduction thread. Please take this else where, as any more posts like this will be deleted. It is possible that a few of these may be deleted as it is.

Amethist

 

[Girl3]

I had no intention of detracting from Danica. I responded originally on the basis of my own experience dealing with others with PTSD which I do frequently. I apologize for any problems my responses might have caused.

 

[Mercy]

Hey everyone...I'm Danica,..... 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?

I think I understand what you are saying. I agree that it feels like time traveling and it is fun sometimes. I like letting myself think about makeing a sand castle on a beach, but I may be feeling a totally different age than I physically am.
My sandcastles can be quite fanciful. I think I learned to use my imagination during the long waits before the child prostitution starts.

For me, trauma flashbacks are the most intense. Other times and other places seem to me like daydreaming which has been suggested to me by something I've seen, or heard, or an emotion. I like these 'time outs' because I do feel gone. That is restful to me a time when I am not under the stress of PTSD.

 

[Tabula-Rasa]

@Mercy: Is there a difference between male and female experiences? My experience of flooding is that I'm aware of then and now. When I read you and Danica, I feel that you don't experience the "then." O.o

 

[amethist]

I am now locking this thread for further comments. As both Girl3 and Tabula-Rasa still instist on hijacking Danica's Introduction thread.

Anthony or Nicolette may re-open it later, but for now no more post will be allowed.

Amethist

 

[anthony]

You have both been warned... take it away from this members introduction thread, or you will both get a temp ban. Private conversations have a purpose, use them please and argue all you want with one another in private.

I have reopened this members thread... one more post on here from either of you in response to one another, you'll be taking a few days off from this forum.

 

[Mercy]

Danica, time traveling is disorienting. It must have been confusing, thinking that your son was your little brother. I sense you would be a good mother and a good sister.

I wonder if your short flash backs have the same quality of immediacy and re-experiencing the event that trauma flashbacks have? One thing that has helped me is to try to go back to the start of a non-traumatic flashback and notice the last thing you remember, a sound, a picture on a cereal box, people too close to you.....Basically searching for the thing, the trigger, that set off these short flashback experiences.

You may find that you learned young how to disassociate. It is possible that the non-traumatic flashbacks are important to, maybe they are 'entry keys' to a deeper memory. May I suggest that you write them all down as soon as you can. This is so that you can catch the details before they fade and because it might be true that you can have the same one a few times.

I'm glad you can here. Our moderators are good and kind people. In this case,it was the messages back and forth between girl3 and tabla-rasa. I think the moderators felt that squabbling about anesthesia was not in your best interests.

This intro is for you to write anything you want and for it to be responded to with care and understanding. Don't worry. You did not do anything wrong. Please keep posting when you feel like it!!!

 

[jo may]

Hi Danica and welcome to the forum:)

I get my flashbacks more in dream form and it's horrid,I feel like it was real takes a good few minutes for me to realise it's 19 yrs on.

I hope you feel able to keep coming back when you need the support.