Is This A Flashback?

[EvenStrongerNow]

The other night, I was watching a movie.

I got up to go to the bathroom. When I was in there, something didn't seem right in my environment. Something felt off. I went back to the living room to lay on the couch.

I was sitting there and then I just started crying uncontrollably. I felt immense emotional pain out of nowhere. The tears just kept pouring out of me.

When I was done crying, I felt really hazy for a few minutes. Like I couldn't see anything around me.

I heard my husband say, "You know you are safe right now, don't you? You are safe" and I felt his hand touch mine. I felt myself come back and suddenly my environment became clear again and I could hear the sound of the television.

Is that a flashback?

If so, I think I've really been underestimating PTSD. I have no idea what triggered me.

 

[Powder]

I have had the same thing happen. It's almost like feeling half alive or trapped in between worlds, the trauma one and this one.

Walking into a room alone has always been a trigger for this for me. I have not "unlocked" the mystery of this, but I suspect it is because of hypervigilence. I know "this" room was safe because I was not being abused in it (and maybe everyone is there, so I can't be abused in front of them!) but if I walk into the bathroom alone, I may be abused "there."

As a child abused at home and outside the home, nowhere is safe if I went alone. Moving from room to room alone will always feel like a risk, just like it did back then. :( So, going to the bathroom because I wanted to was going into no-man's-land. Part of me wanted to act, but part didn't. Now that inner conflict rages on and creates these dissociations.

 

[fly away home]

I am no expert but how I would have viewed this experience is there was a trigger of some sort in the bathroom when 'something felt off' then you dissociated whilst on the couch.

I can't say I understand flashbacks at all as I always assumed there was imagery and this happens with me but not as often as what you have described above. I don't cry but I have the overwhelming emotions and the lost distant state. Then I have discovered there are emotional flashbacks. This just puts a spanner in the works of my understanding of ptsd. So perhaps these things are flashbacks?

Wishing you the best with finding some understanding of what happens with you at these times.

 

[yoshixvx]

It could very well be a flashback. I know one thing about them.. that I really know nothing about them at all. Sometimes I think I am making reasonable judgments about my environment, only to realize later that it was the result of the body (not the mind) being in a flashback or feedback loop. Sometimes I am triggered by something that I was unaware of being a trigger in the first place (e.g. I was triggered by a seashell I had seen many times before, but the timing of the trigger (lack of sleep, guard was down) took me back to the traumatizing event that was related to the object).

@Muse I also grew up in an abusive home, so I can relate to never feeling safe, no matter where you were. That in itself is a huge trigger for flashbacks, and they don't always have to be ones you are conscious of.

Sorry I don't have any solid answers, but please know that you are not alone. It's terrifying but it sounds like you have a great support (your husband) who is understanding of what to do in those moments when you need grounding.

 

[keifer]

I'd say yes, it's an emotional flashback. A trigger isn't required to have a flashback.

I also have cried for no reason and I've felt nothing while crying. I just cry. One time, I just cried buckets out of the blue. Most of the time, I'm triggered by watching something on TV which should provoke an emotional response and it happens. I still don't feel anything emotionally. I just cry.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

I don't feel I was dissociating since I was crying uncontrollably. I know when I dissociate.

Well, I guess it's not important. I'm just trying to put names to things because if it was a flashback, then maybe feeling "off" could be a symptom I can be aware of in the future.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

I remember watching a movie prior to going into the bathroom. It was about a plane crash. My trauma was not a plane crash, but there was this little girl that almost fell out of the plane and they pulled her back in. When the air filled slide came down for them to slide out of the plane at the end, I remember looking at their faces thinking, "I wonder if they will have PTSD" as if what happened in the movie were happening in real time. I identified with them. It was the new Liam Neeson movie.

Then, that's when I went into the bathroom. Do you think that was the trigger?

I thought a trigger is required to have a flashback?

 

[fly away home]

I have had flashbacks with no recognisable trigger. I have just been relaxing sitting on the deck and bang there I go.

 

[keifer]

The reason I say it's a flashback, I didn't cry when my event happened. It's something happening in my brain to release the pain inside. Maybe part of my subconscious having the flashback and my conscious just crying. If I recall right, I had one flashback where I could feel that same pain.

For me, PTSD is all parts and pieces fragmented in my brain. It doesn't paint a complete picture and rarely do any of the pieces connect to paint a better memory or picture. It could be the brains way of protecting itself. Separate memories and emotions into fragments so it's not over loaded. The end result is PTSD where the brain is replay mode to try and put things together but it can't.

I also have times my current memory just fragments too and I can't access things I normally can.

 

[Powder]

@keifer, you are able to put it all in words with such clarity. Thank you. It feels somehow healing just to read you telling it like it is.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

I think I understand what you are saying. Thank you for sharing it with me.

I keep thinking it is something I have to figure out because then that means I might be able to control something or rid of it.

Perhaps I should just let it be?

 

[Powder]

I keep thinking it is something I have to figure out because then that means I might be able to control something or rid of it.

That is a reaction I have often. Yes, acceptance is a needed step. Figuring out triggers is not a quick fix like we want. It's normal to want to make it better. I do this a lot, reflexively. Trick is, then I end up thinking in circles.