Intrusive Memories Vs Flashbacks - What Is The Experience Of Each Like?

[Justmehere]

What is the difference between them? My therapist mentions both, and I have never had the time to stop and ask her to explain to me which is which (I will ask her someday soon).

But I am wondering how other suffers experience intrusive memories and flashbacks.

In my experience, I have called events/experiences "intrusive memories" when stuff just comes up at times and feels so real, but that I'm not automatically acting before I think like I am actually in the memory. It can come up in bits and pieces, like I am at a grocery store and I see someone who is wearing a blue shirt and suddenly I am remembering the blue shirt my abuser worse and I get the chills. Or I am taking a walk and all of a sudden I remember the smell of the air right after an abuse. It can come up as a whole damn serious of events that I remember - like sitting on the bus and I remember everything that happened in a car accident.

Flashbacks to me are like when I hear a loud sound, and automatically duck for cover like it's a past trauma happening now, RIGHT NOW. Like being in a vehicle and all of a sudden seeing a crash and ducking for cover.... when no actual crash is occurring.

There seem to be a lot of ways I experience both of them.

I don't know if this is the right labels for these experiences though, and there are a lot of other experiences - I'm struggling trying to figure out what it all is.

Any thoughts, opinions, experiences, ideas, feedback is welcome and would be much appreciated.

 

[anthony]

In my experience, I have called events/experiences "intrusive memories" when stuff just comes up at times and feels so real, but that I'm not automatically acting before I think like I am actually in the memory. It can come up in bits and pieces, like I am at a grocery store and I see someone who is wearing a blue shirt and suddenly I am remembering the blue shirt my abuser worse and I get the chills. Or I am taking a walk and all of a sudden I remember the smell of the air right after an abuse. It can come up as a whole damn serious of events that I remember - like sitting on the bus and I remember everything that happened in a car accident.

These are intrusive memories / recollections.

Flashbacks to me are like when I hear a loud sound, and automatically duck for cover like it's a past trauma happening now, RIGHT NOW.

No... that is hyper-vigilance. A flashback is different again, and in essence, they're rare in the sense of symptoms.

https://www.myptsd.com/threads/what-is-a-flashback-a-flashback-is.13876/

They're called a phenomenon for a good reason, because of their rarity. To be perfectly honest, it can be very difficult to tell between a flashback and memory recollections at times, because political correctness has taken the word and watered it down so much nowadays, people are just getting confused. Society basically wants to claim so many facets of memory recall are flashbacks, instead of what they simply are... memory recall.

 

[NovemberStar]

I used to be confused as to the difference - I always believed flashbacks were like you were 're-living it' (which is true); but because I heard other people describe flashbacks as lasting for several minutes, I thought what I was experience was more 'memories' not flashbacks. My Dr clarified it, and I have read - flashbacks can be very brief - I used to call mine 'flashes' because sometimes they really were 'just' for second or two - but they did really feel like I was BACK there, albeit briefly.

The short flashbacks I have had, it feels so real that I am back there, that I momentarily get very confused as to if I am in the present or the past - I've described it as 'the past and present are touching' - it's like there is a second separating the two, not 30 years. After I have a flashback, the next few minutes I am left bewildered and dazed. Its like I am not sure if the present is real - the present feels like I am in a 'dream' and then I have to work out if I am in the past and asleep having a bad dream and that any moment I will 'wake up' - and be BACK in the abuse, as a child.

Intrusive memories for me, are just that - memories, with images, but I don't experience the feeling that it is happening NOW - the images are far less disturbing, because they don't have the same intensity of feeling real.

In short, with an intrusive memory I never lose sight of that fact I am in the present and the memory is just a memory - it feels like it happened all those years ago; whereas a flashback feels like the past happened mere seconds ago.

Adding to my confusion was that I focused on the term 'intrusive' - I felt the flashbacks were more 'intrusive' to me that the 'memories', and it's taken a very very very long time to work out what I was experiencing were in fact, flashbacks.

Hope that helps!

 

[Justmehere]

@anthony - thanks! That's really helpful info and thanks for the link to the other thread too.

@NovemberStar - ah, thanks for explaining and clarifying it more! Very helpful.

 

[anthony]

I've described it as 'the past and present are touching'

That is extremely apt... well said. And you are very correct, in that there is no such time limit on a flashback. Some people have them, most do not.

 

[NovemberStar]

What you seem to describe above seems to be a mix - when you said 'it feels so real' - that COULD be a flashback, IF you (even momentarily) lose sight of timer reference - if you get confused as to if your 'flash' is in the now, or if you are back in the past.

If you never lose sight of the fact you are in the NOW, then it is an intrusive memory, albeit a very vivid one.

" In other words, people who suffer from flashbacks lose all sense of time and place, and they feel as if they are re-experiencing the event instead of just recalling a memory" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(psychology).

I'm sure there are many other sources rather than Wikipedia, I just grabbed that sentence quickly cos for me it sums it up well ;)

As I said, it took em a long time to realize what I was experiencing were flashbacks, because I thought they had to last several minutes, and couldn't be a few seconds like mine. The 'image and sensations' for me last a second or two, but the confusion as to past / present lasts a bit longer - add into the mix, the fear, panic and dissociation as I try to work out 'is this NOW' or is it THEN"???!!!!

It is a really terrifying thought, and when I am dissociated (even mildly) I really do begin to think that even the past 30 years hasn't happened at all; that I am in the past, I have fallen asleep, and had a dream that has played out as 30 years - that all the things I have done, achieved over the past 3 decades are just a dream and any moment I will wake up, and be a 9 year old child, in the house with my abusive mother ;(

 

[Tinyflame]

Though I too have only had a few, I have no recognition or awareness of the present during a flashback, but I can remember the flashback when it ends and I am in the present. They, no I, feel almost suspended in them during it, but I recognize the details and I can see and hear what is going on in it (not what is going on around me).

Because I can remember after what I felt during it, I use that to acknowledge (sometimes for the first time) what I guess I felt then.

 

[Justmehere]

Thank you - this is so helpful! I'm thinking it through and I think I understand what everyone is explaining.

I think the flashbacks are pretty rare for me as well.

 

[NovemberStar]

That is extremely apt... well said. And you are very correct, in that there is no such time limit on a flashback. Some people have them, most do not.

It's so hard to describe, and as I said, it took me a long time, and it's only really in the last week or two I have been able to clarify in my mind, what it was and wasn't.

The scariest part is that it feels like the difference between me being back in the abusive situation in 1985 and being in 2014, are not 30 years difference, but a few seconds - or a few hours if the past 30 years have actually been a dream I'm having, as a young girl. And one that will wake up only to find that I never grew up, left home, and all this time has passed - that instead I fell asleep and had a very vivid dream in which I grew up, moved out of home and lived 30 years of my life.

All I can say is - THANK GOD it only lasts a few seconds or minutes for the aftermath. It does happen frequently though - some days I can go a day or two without any flashbacks, but then I can have them every few minutes for hours at a time.

What does give me hope is - I had a period of 12 years without a single flashback (all triggered up again 3 years ago by the trauma of multiple severe and damaging earthquakes in my city, including a fatal one where I thought I was going to die). Last year I had months without one. But they've been there consistently now since last July. Trying to be positive here - I guess it give me the time and space to be able to work through my unresolved trauma - and hopefully for the last time!

And THANK GOD, the confusion over time only seems to last a short time also. If that feeling lasted hours, I think it would be a very dangerous place to be in mentally.

 

[broken brain]

Great question! My flashbacks (It was just discovered I get them) come in the form of extreme and intense emotional responses. My whole body and demeanor reacts, and people have described it as if they could feel a shift in energy in the room because the change is so quick and sudden. The feelings of repulsion, shame, disgust and fear just slam down on me out of nowhere (well, when I'm triggered) and it lasts for quite some time. It is almost impossible (for me at this point in my journey) to recover quickly.

I experience intrusive memories and they typically come out when I'm stressed or anxious about 'normal' things.Things run on replay in my head in a loop and I have to fight to keep them out of my mind because panic attacks usually happen as a result. I have come a long way with dealing with the intrusive thoughts/memories because it was so, so much worse in my teen years.

 

[Nebulustrix]

I get intrusive thoughts/memories a LOT, but I've only ever really had one genuine flashback. I can tell a very obvious difference, though sometimes I feel like the intrusive memories are so overwhelming they could potentially push me into another flashback... I think that thought is more my fear of being "there" again.... The memories bring resurfaced emotions- fear, stress, anxiety- that keep building if I cannot de-stress and get my thoughts back under control. I start to feel like I'm losing myself, and I start to get panicky... I've had a few panic attacks - but I really think that some of my panic attacks have been nothing more than a new built in fear of having a flashback, as if the flashback itself has now become another traumatic memory all it's own.

I actually recall my flashback almost as frequently as the memories of my actual trauma, and it terrifies me just as badly, because the feelings and the experience was just as intense, just as real. And what made it even more terrifying all on it's own was the sudden and inexplicable loss of control. Reason was no longer there. My "conscious" brain was no longer in the driver seat. There was just a flood of terror and I was THERE and I HAD to escape, and I thought I was going to die... but somewhere, there in the back of my mind, my conscious brain was trying to regain control and I had the vaguest of understandings that my terror was not a response to reality, that what I was feeling and seeing and experiencing was just a memory... but it sure didn't feel like a memory.