How often do you have flashbacks on an average day?

[Abstract]

How do we live normal present lives? I feel like I’ve gone backwards!

I think backwards can help us go forewards sometimes if we use it as we can. Its OK in a sense that you are where you are and things can change. One of the most helpful things I found was practicing grounding and mindfulness every second of every day (as much as is possible of course!). Being willing and invested in change is really important. Be patient with yourself. Working on it diligently definitely pays off. Slipping back fully into the past where you are now will only keep you in misery.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

Wow this is amazing thank you for sharing, my T keeps reminding me about practising grounding. I’m only 2 months in with her and it’s tough as it’s all new, I also have a lot of life changes on my plate which impact my awareness and I get caught off guard.
Thank you for sharing this.

Having a lot on your plate should impact making changes to help with staying grounded. Once you have objects and such in place to act as grounding aids, then knowing they are there may be all it takes to unconsciously use them. The clock is a big one for me, I can hear it, I can focus on the sound, so my mind stays grounded and not in trauma time.

This works well for me, it may for others I hope.

I got onto this approach out of an emotional flashback when I was at Sheppard Pratt trauma disorders unit. Staying grounded became a must to prevent such flashbacks. As those flashbacks are scary and I have no control over the behavior when they occur.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

How often do you have flashbacks on an average day?

Lately? 3 or 4. Or one really, really, really long one that's really bad and I end up huddled on the bathroom floor.

It differs day to day. When I'm working (at the last day of a horrible week vacation) that's a distraction. A long distraction. I have had flashbacks at work. But usually I don't. So, work days I can go a few days without one then have one. On days off its harder. Most especially my first day off as that's therapist's day (weekly).

So I can go a few days, not have one, have one then a few days and not have one, etc.

Really, depends on what's going on in life. Recently my brain has decided that traffic cameras are triggering and well, since they are literally everywhere, it is now everytime I am driving somewhere...while driving. Pain in the f*cking ass!

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I think it depends on the person and where they are with their trauma. Some time ago I got them all the time. But as I use some of the coping skills I have been taught more and more I seem to do a better job at managing the effects of my trauma such that my flashbacks are minimal in comparison to where i started. That does not mean i don't have periods where I get them more. I do, in fact right now I am, but it's because my therapy has touched on some items in my trauma.

I suspect I will having more flashbacks in about 10 months, when I go to them camp where I was first abused. Its a fun camp now, turning a bad memory into a good one is part of it. The other is confronting the past as the past, but doing it in the present. But I am already getting flashbacks from it.

 

[Kieran]

I'd say about three or four times per day. But depending on the day, sometimes I just have one and on better days I have none, or a couple every other day.

Hmm... yeah, I can say depending on the content of my flashbacks, some would be considered a safe place. Though it's not common for me personally.

 

[meander]

I think it depends on the person and where they are with their trauma. Some time ago I got them all the time. it.

I guess. And for me I’m still exploring aka sharing/admitting what happened so it feels very near the surface and raw a lot of the time. I think in the past I have had mostly emotional ones and couldn’t understand them or even what was going on but more recently the visual has been prominent.
I only seem to really ground myself when I’m in T session. Although I guess distraction is a form of grounding isn’t it? Or is that avoidance? Hmmm....

Hmm... yeah, I can say depending on the content of my flashbacks, some would be considered a safe place. Though it's not common for me personally.

Yes- currently most of my flashbacks are about the comfort/seduction and it’s only in real time that I can discern that these led to or from abusive events. The abusive events themselves are very fragmented. I wonder if this is because the abuse was frequent over 5 years. There was so much that I don’t even know which happened when. So disturbing.

 

[Abstract]

Just want to add that the backlash associated with them can vary a lot. And when in a better place about an event it seems the intensity decreases.

 

[meander]

Yes for me there are different backlashes too. Recently the flashbacks have been ramping up but I think it’s because it’s new territory on therapy. She asked me this week what I had done in previous therapy- certainly didn’t discuss specific details and kept it as one event...I just wish she would hug me! Is that bad?
Just exhausting.

Hmm... yeah, I can say depending on the content of my flashbacks, some would be considered a safe place. Though it's not common for me personally.

He comforted me. I was a lonely cast put and he scooped me up. Groomed me to shit then coerced me into sexual acts- him touch, me touch, him kiss, me kiss, him lick, me lick, him restrain me and penetrate but all in gentle coercive fashion claiming I was wanted and special. A scene of someone restraining me and his head between my legs. I watch it. I feel nothing except a need to close my legs but my hips are locked. There are others.