Is This An Example Of A Flashback?

[sun seeker]

Yup, like @Nam says, they're intrusive thoughts. They can be pretty annoying, I know. I had to stop trying to meditate because of them. :(

 

[The Albatross]

Intrusive thoughts are: "I think I'll blow my head off right now. or, "Why don't you just turn the steering wheel hard right and go over the guard rail into an embankment or off the overpass?" Even though there is no supporting evidence that anything is amiss. The behavior to play out the scenario beyond the thought is WHY it is not intrusive. It is a maladaptive thinking pattern. (those are my big two most intrusive thoughts... btw)

 

[Friday]

It's a normal facet of ADHD... Done it my whole life. Not constantly, but daily. The more I'm moving the more often it happens. Sometimes hundreds of flashes of "what ifs" a day. Sometimes only a few dozen. Part situational awareness, part heightened awareness, part intrusive thoughts, part catastrophizing, part imagination+reality. Depends on the situ. Sometimes emotions are attached. More often it's just me brain ticking through possibilities.

PTSD flavors it in certain ways via certain experiences. As a case in point I've been in probably a few hundred vehicle crashes of various types for work. I've also seen my fair share of other people's crashes. Some good outcomes. Some bad. So as I'm driving? That's what I see. All the different trajectories & possible outcomes. I happen to love driving, and that's partly because I can see so many outcomes at all times. I almost never feel trapped. Speeds, angles, everything comes together in a very fluid thing. It's relaxing. Unless I'm visualizing the cause and effects of spinning my wheel & standing on the breaks at 70mph (like a ballet pirouette, and then blood & dying... Or worse, all the breaking), or going off a cliff, into a pole, etc. That's when my suicidal ideation has kicked up, or my anxiety, or whatever.

Everyone, to the best of my knowledge, can do it. Most new parents do it for a short time, until they relax. Most experts in any field can look at a thing and see the possibilities present. ADHD people, and certain SPD people, do it all the time as a facet of incoming sensory information. PTSD people often do it in relation to trauma.

 

[ghotiff]

To me there is a difference between: ...crossing the street and having a short thought of being hit by a car which reminds you to look before you cross
And
...walking past an elevator (with no intention to use it) and seeing a detailed video of oneself trapped as it falls.

Maybe there is no clinical difference?, but they feel very different to me.

 

[WildMermaid]

I have these destructive sorts of thoughts and imaginings as well.