Physically, don’t have much physical reexperiencing. More of a heightened startle response to unsolicited touch. And getting nauseous when I’m too stressed because of the flashback. Or all in pain because of stress. But not really like a reenacting of the physical sensations.
I have a lot of directly or indirectly related dreams. They get more real according to my overall level of stress. In certain dreams I feel it all just as if I was in the situation, and wake up ready to die. This is why I like sleeping in places with lights on. I need to see my room and know it’s quiet. It’s safe. Physically I have shortness of breath and a dry mouth, eventually a headache too.
Most of the reexperiencing though comes through intrusive thoughts and emotional flashbacks.
The emotional flashbacks are the most difficult to grab, because they mix various different situations coming from different traumas and form a giant blurb where I become elusive, oppositional, tense, crying, obscure and tend to push-pull by trying to look for comfort but then finding it uncomfortable, then wanting to be alone and sleep, and can’t. Sometimes I can. Not always. >> These ones are real episodes and it can variate so much depending on who is responding to it or the context they pop in. Sometimes it just fades away, others it keeps stirring up until full drama mode, that was before I had medication. It would stir up for several hours up to several days before peaking.
But it’s very difficult for me at times to spot exactly what’s re-emerging. In the case of dreams or "proper" visual flashbacks and thoughts it’s easy to identify, but with more ancient stuff it becomes much more abstract. I just tend to coil and wait.
ETA, not so lazy, it’s somehow been a week from when I started writing this, and getting back to it! The whole thing is quirky, because I have to think about how I actually respond, in order to put a super-quick name to it (like A-F = flashbacks, 1-82 are types of intrusive thoughts, my own personal spectrum of nightmare types & cycles, etc.). So it’s a quick simple list... but each item might have 25 or 200 different examples .
