Is This A Flashback? Does Anyone Relate?

[Slugcat]

Does anyone have similar experience to this - does your therapist call it a flashback?

• I get a feeling of being scared.
• I feel like someone or something is in the room or near me but I cant see anything.
• The fear is really big and I feel like I am going to be attacked or killed, that something bad or someone bad is there for sure and that it wants to really hurt me.
• I can't see anything so I think it must be something invisible, don't laugh, I believe in ghosts so my mind thinks OK I feel something scary and I cant see it so it must be a ghost.
• It feels so damn scary it has to be real it cannot be a memory or something as it feels so real.
• I sometimes hear bad thoughts like a voice but its in my head telling me how its going to get me, hurt me all manner of horrible things.
• I sometimes, not always, see in my minds eye (more than with my real eyes)that there is actually a presence of a dark menacing figure somewhere near me. Sometimes it feels like its really near by.
• My fear goes through the roof, I can't sleep or feel safe, I am really scared badly.
• I have had versions of this all my life since I was a teenager. As a teenager I even had one episode of real hallucinations. The doctors thought it was stress induced.
• I am in therapy for child abuse trauma and I have a big list of other symptoms since I was a child.
• I have some clear memories of 'mild abuse' I say mild because during that abuse, I am not aware that I was fearing for my life. Please don't be offended it is my way of phrasing it and I can't think of a better word. And when I get this flashback thing or whatever it is, I really do feel fear for my life. So I don't think it is connected to that abuse.

I asked my therapist, how can it be a flashback if I do not remember the event that it is about? I don't get how she can know its a flashback if I don't recall it being connected to an event. Unless its a repressed memory but then I need to ask, does this seem like a flashback? I am asking people if anyone gets similar experiences. I am quite nervous about asking or even speaking of this in public as I feel like a crazy person.

Thank you.

 

[onlybygrace]

Hi.....from what you are describing ranges from typical PTSD symptoms to emotional flashbacks and the "regular" flashbacks that most people are familiar with. I have just recently found out about emotional flashbacks, something that I have been experiencing since childhood. Sights, sounds, smells and even movement can evoke an emotional flashback in me. I have been fortunate in my recovery and path, these don't alarm me much anymore, I take it all in stride. I can recall it wasn't too long ago that these emotional flashbacks would trigger me for days, if not weeks. Then the full blown PTSD symptoms to deal with for a while....fun.

My memories and flashbacks for many, many years and still to this day often are just jumbled bits and pieces and it is crazy making to try to anaylse it down to every event or getting verification or whatnot. I know that doesn't sound encouraging but I made myself nuts trying to find out "the truth", the meaning behind a particular memory or reaction and I actually would become more anxious or make myself sick with needing to know how it all fit.

I repressed a lot of what happened to me and just having a mere emotional flashback is enough to know you have been hurt and violated. Knowing the exact details or connections will not necessarily make it feel better. Just trust your instinct and continue on with your therapy. Journalling and working on your feelings (and reactions) can be very insightful and help you deal with what's happening with you day by day. Hopefully you'll be able to piece some of what happened to you.

I have had many flashbacks over the years and they generally come as a quick vision while you are awake and it'll take me totally unaware. These flashbacks can been quite short, very intense and quite detailed at times. I have found that I can't control these flashbacks, they are always, always a surprise. This is where all that anxiety can be such a fight for mental survival everyday.

I had an emotional flashback about two weeks ago regarding a person who had abused me when I was a child. The memory of this person's abuse almost destroyed me when I first started dealing with it back in '91. To my knowledge and memory, I have been abused by four people. In the past, after a flashback, I would be suicidal and in full blown PTSD symptoms. But....on the upswing and bright side of this journey, I can honesty tell you that this recent flashback was merely a hiccup compared to how I would have received in all those years ago.

I hope that sharing my experience with you will help. I am so sorry that you have to go through this but, it will get better. Believe me, it will. It is a healing process and it is doable. God bless....

 

[Artista]

Never put the definition to it, but I see now I do have emotional flashbacks as well. There are moments I feel sick from something or almost throw up. It isn't like my visual, sensory flashbacks, just a nagging feeling of something terribly wrong. So unsettling that I want to hide in a ball and they seem to pile on top of another for me once they start as if once the nerves are touched I am hyper aware of any trigger.

 

[Lauren]

That helps SavedByGrace. I have overwhelming feelings of fear that I can't attach to anything. I have recently had 2 visual flashbacks in the last 2 weeks that were so incredible quick and powerful. Totally took me off guard. Both were shortly after waking up which I find interesting. I may have been having flashbacks before but didn't realize it. I wonder if Therapy is bringing them up.

 

[Artista]

I would say yes.. I began having more when I began having more of a support network. I think that is a good sign even if it may not feel that way! ; ) At least that is how i take it! They say the brain only lets out what we can handle and to "trust the process". Some days I wanna say screw the process... but it does make sense. The safer we may be or the more help we have than we did, is bound to bring it to the forefront!

 

[onlybygrace]

I have noticed that the more I try to force it or to understand the flashbacks or make connections, it more it will elude me or depress me. Artista, I agree, "trust the process". Therapy will trigger more flashbacks and to me that's good, though scary at times. Just go with the flow....

 

[the racha]

Hi, Slugcat. I have very similar things happen to me. I do consider them to be flashbacks (whether emotional or sensory). At the time of the trauma, I was simply too scared to express any of the emotions that I was feeling. Especially physical pain and psychological fear.

I was just recently triggered very badly by a t.v. show. I immediately had a pretty terrible flashback, and another one a couple of days later. The body memories were absolutely horrible. I'm still trying to fully recover-- it's been a week at this point and my PTSD symptoms are basically full-blown.

You know that you have memories of bad things happening. It's likely that, at the time, you had to repress your emotions substantially. So it's possible that your emotions are starting to force their way out one way or the other. It can be hard to accept that many of the fears you're feeling now are connected to something that happened in your past, but at the very least try to keep yourself open to that possibility. It can be very overwhelming to make that connection and understand just how scared you really were, and that that fear may have led to complete dissociation.

Good luck.

racha

 

[Artista]

Well said and just what I must work on. I tried to work on desensitizing myself yesterday.... smoke and fire... the sounds of it crackling all of it is a big trigger. The fear is one thing that begins to paralyze me. As i let in the stimulus, it's like concrete in my veins. I get heavier and wanna stop functioning. Hard to fight that fear response. I am exhausted today as a result of it. I avoided a flashback perhaps out of the sheer determination to not ruin my kids wonderful day... but the self-talk and the pacing is just so tiring. i may try to control some moments and get used to it. I guess it was a small victory that i kept functioning in spite of how I felt.

 

[Slugcat]

Thank You

Hi thank you for your replies. I hope it’s OK to not respond to each post as I am too wiped out. But I read what you guys said and it is really helpful, thank you for replying.

I feel really like these can’t be flashbacks like I need someone to have the exact same experience as me and tell me so I can go, yes, uhuh yes that is like me. It’s like I am seeing all the differences and not the similarities.

Because I never really see this type of thing discussed, like what I described I don’t see that talked about so it probably is not a flashback. It is not a fast thing I see, I don't even see anything most of the time and it is never a fast thing.

I don’t have body memories I never have and so I read someone else has them, I guess most people do and I do not therefore I am mental and just making this stuff up. It’s like I want someone to have exact same experience as me and be able to read about it before I can agree that yes I have PTSD symptoms, or that yes this is a PTSD symptom.

My therapist thinks they are flashbacks and told me to read about flashbacks but when I do it doesn’t seem like what I get.

My only "thing that proves" is I guess, is that I know some kind of bad stuff happened, bad enough for me to repress so that must of been traumatic to some degree. I did repress memories and those spontaneously came up in my twenties after someone close to me passed away. I read that is a common age and way repressed memories can comeback. I know without a doubt those memories are real. But everything else I don’t know and it makes me feel crazy.

Thank you for replying to me and for helping. I am sticking to therapy and will try to not analyze it all. It does make me feel crazy though.