Is This Normal?

[EvenStrongerNow]

Is it normal to have multiple flashbacks in one day?

I think it may have been what the nausea was this morning because I had two flashbacks today. Is nausea a symptom of a flashback? Also, what about pain, numbness, and chills?

Today was really rough. I was triggered a few times here at home, my brain zeroes in on a memory. It feels like I'm going into a tunnel and then I can't hear or see anything. It's literally a domino effect of images in my brain of the trauma. I feel like I'm right back there again. When it's over and I come back, I'm so depressed and my chest hurts.

They seem to be getting more intense and closer together than they have ever been. But they seem shorter. Is that a good thing? Does that mean that healing is under way?

Sigh. It's so difficult. I am finding radical acceptance really useful right now. It's all I can do. I know it might sound crazy, but it seems almost like depression is my friend in a way. It's like my brain's way of shutting off after it was so highly activated from the flashbacks.....like it saves me somehow....just a thought I was having.

I'm hanging in there until I can see a new T. It's so hard. I'm trying so hard to push the thoughts away of "maybe I'm just crazy and none of this is real" because I know that's not true. It is real. It has to be.

 

[franciemarnie]

((((Strongernow))))

It has been so long since Ive had flashbacks that all I remember is the inexorable back in the trauma time-travel experience. I don't remember the physical stuff. Just the horror.

But when I release trauma energy in somatic release I get chills for sure. And then that leaves quickly. I will get the nausea when I wake up when big emotional energy is on the way. And I do notice numbness come and go in the process.

I hope you can get some rest now and in the days to come. It is an exhausting process.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

Thanks franciemarnie. Hugs back at you.

Wait, you mean flashbacks can go away completely??!

Also, them being closer together and more intense, does that mean healing is under way?

I just took some Benadryl. The past few nights, it hasn't been working and I can't sleep until like 5am. Hopefully, it will work tonight.

 

[franciemarnie]

Gosh, I never realized it until you said that but my flashbacks did stop like maybe ten years ago. I will have to think about it now to be certain. I am talking about the back in time-you are there again-you can't pull out-it's happening now flashbacks.

I can only theorize about them getting closer and closer together and more intense because I am no doc that's for sure. But IMO and from what I understand - yes, healing could very definitely be happening.

The body is trying to release the trauma energy that was frozen, and the associated memory fragment bopping around without a home in the brain, which was never filed in the permanent memory bank as an event over and done and past. The flashback brings it back in real time so you can release. When you shake and tremble with the chills, the trauma energy is leaving. It makes sense you feel sick. The trauma was sickening and it's a trauma for the body to go thru it again. The stress hormones are going wild. Your acid level probably skyrockets too.

That's what I have been given to understand.

The sleep will come. I am usually up until dawn, but them I take naps as needed. I know it is a drag. Around 3 a.m. my mind doesn't function so well as early in the day and the intrusive thoughts usually come a calling! Although tonight I am feeling good mind wise.

I take something with the same Benadryl medication. I hope you can find something pleasant and comforting to do tonight if you have to be up. Speaking of the med, I best take mine. The bewitching hour is almost upon us!

 

[nomedic1]

It does seem like you you are healing, keep up the good work Strong

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

lol the bewitching hour! Not funny, but so true :) That gives me so much hope. Thanks for writing to me.

(((@franciemarnie)))

Thanks (((@nomedic1)))

 

[Barconian]

Benadryl Isn't it a anti septic to kill germs?

 

[arfie]

My own flashbacks tend to come in batches. Yes, they produce physical effects. Primarily, nausea and dizziness. Left unchecked, the physical effects seem to chain react. One thing leads to another, to another, ad infinitum. When I focus my attention on calming the physical symptoms, the flashbacks seem to calm to simple memories on their own, where I can recall them without reliving them. Memory vs. Time travel. In my own case, I have come to believe that they come in batches because my subconscious is zeroing in on patterns. Cases where the same phenom has presented on multiple occasions. Just a personal theory...

 

[Bedbug]

Normal to a lot of us, but definitely not normal.

I've had days very much like yours. Hang in there.

 

[Ghostybear73]

I do believe the more you work on your trauma, the more flashbacks you get. It is also the same with dreams, emotions, attitudes, etc. It always gets worse before it gets better. The good news is that you are working so hard that maybe everything will start to ease up soon.

Keep up the good work!!

((((StrongerNow)))

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

@Barconian Benadryl is an antihistamine for allergies with an ingredient in it that makes you drowsy.

It's safe for pregnant women to take so a lot of people with insomnia use it.

 

[Barconian]

@Barconian Benadryl is an antihistamine for allergies with an ingredient in it that makes you drowsy.

My mistake, I was thinking of betadine when I wrote that (silly me)