Re-writing The Flashback Ending..

[NovemberStar]

My session with my T yesterday helped me. I've been struggling with suicidal depression, flashbacks. One incident I only know how I felt after it. I was terrified, felt very stuck, hopeless, helpless, suicidal. I saw no escape other than killing myself (I was about 9 or 10). My mother was physically abusive and I lived in fear of her.

Yesterday, my T worked hard with me to find a way to get out of the bedroom I was stuck in, in the flashback. As long as I was stuck in that room, I was stuck in the suicidal feelings. We tried so many things - trying to put someone strong in the room with me, finding an object I felt safe with - anything. The only thing that worked was to picture having a knife. At first, I used it on me. She said I wasn't allowed to self harm in the visualisation.

So I changed the ending. I got the knife. I felt dissociated. But I felt strong enough to leave the bedroom. I go down the hall. My mother is sitting on the lounge chair. She doesn't see me coming. I stab her. She makes no noise, and I stab her several times. I don't think there is much blood, but she is dead. I feel nothing much - but I no longer feel scared. I feel relieved.


I don't know what to feel now. In many ways it feels so good to have found a way out of being forever trapped in that bedroom. Having the knife enabled me to feel safe enough to move and get out. It gives me another escape other than suicide.


Has anyone else done this with visualisation? Re-writing the ending on a traumatic incident? Did it help you long term?

 

[DharmaGirl]

I have been trying to do it with my most horrid incident that I never told anyone but my therapist about. I dropped it and I'm glad I saw your post because I want to bring it up in therapy tomorrow.

During a nightmare the night before last, I stopped the dream and told myself to change it. I changed it, but then let it revert back. Its not the same but it is kind of the same. I don't know if these things will work in the long run. I hope so.

 

[Lucycat]

I have rewritten the ending but I used the safe person to help me out, which you said did not work for you. It completely changed the ending and was just brilliant. I could not believe how powerful the effect was, and since the first time have used the same technique several times.

 

[Road2Recovery]

NovemberStar, may I send you a virtual hug? I know exactly what you are talking about. I haven't re-written my flashbacks in therapy, but I always try to do this before I fall asleep with one of my worst traumas.

I was bullied from ages 10-12 and I was suicidal then as well. Just like you, I felt like it was my only escape. You were stuck in your bedroom and I was stuck in a cinderblock hell know as middle school. I find myself figuring out new ways of escaping my tormentors. Ways to fight them off or fight back or run away from that school. I have a hard time accepting and comforting my 10 year old self and would have used the knife on myself in the same way you did at first. At times though, I have used a knife on them as well. Maybe my visualizations never worked to stop the flashbacks bc I didn't have my T helping me work through it.

I am glad you found relief from your flashbacks through using this in therapy. I think I am going to talk with my T about trying to use this to free myself!

 

[franciemarnie]

I have rewritten the endings many times, one in particular I've done several times. I find it very effective. Let the limbic brain chew on that visual for a change!

 

[radicalgratitude]

For me it doesn't help to rewrite a flashback, it just makes me feel depressed that I had to make it up. Instead, I visualize what happened when it was over and I was in a safe place (at least for a while). I visualize myself at girl scouts the next day with what happened being over. The end.

 

[NovemberStar]

I couldn't use a safe person because there WAS no safe person. The key theme of that particular flashback is the awful realization there WAS no one to help me - I was forever stuck in that hell. There was no safe place or safe person, and I was truly truly alone, and had to deal with the continuing trauma alone. Today I feel very dissociated, anxious, floaty. It is like I am finally letting it sink it how BAD it was - that it really did happen. That it was bad enough that the only way out was suicide or homicide.

But I am out of that bedroom - I was stuck in that flashback for most of two years - although I have only felt the feelings associated with it - or been aware of them - for the past month. I am not feeling suicidal or depressed today. That alone is a HUGE relief.

 

[maddog]

I have used this technique exactly as LucyCat describes, using a safe person to enter the image and rewrite/re-image its ending. Sometimes this involves having the safe person take me away from the trauma event or intervene in other ways to keep me safe or to comfort/assist me. At times we have even just worked on introducing the safe person to sit with me and talk with my child self in the image, which has helped me to voice a lot of split off child thoughts and feelings that I have been unable to fully explore through more conventional techniques.

At first I was blatantly incredulous about this technique, then cautiously sceptical, then faintly hopeful, and the impact has been amazing - overwhelmingly so. It took me a long long time to have enough genuine belief in a safe person though, and I am sure this technique would not have been useful if I had tried using it too soon. I now find that I am able to consciously recall the altered image at times of distress or when the original flashback occurs, and also that the altered cognitive and emotional messages are able to be called to mind in some other similar contexts and for similar memories as well. It's classic neural pathway rewriting in action, and I can't speak highly enough of it.

I too did not have a safe person at the time NovemberStar, which is why I introduced my T, who obviously wasn't there at the time of the original traumas, but somehow that didn't matter.

I have found it to be a temporarily disorientating and very emotionally intense exercise though, so not surprised you feel floaty and worn out today. Hang in there, it's hard work, but good work.

Maddog

 

[franciemarnie]

I use my adult self as the safe person.

 

[NovemberStar]

I was able to use myself - adult me - for one part of it. When I fled to the bedroom I put myself into the cupboard. With my T I was able to imagine the adult me just standing beside the little me on the cupboard. My T tried to get me to talk to the young me, but there were no words. I wasn't able to tell her it was ok, because I knew years and years later she will have to go through this all over again via flashbacks.

I wasn't able to use my T because I don't feel safe with her. It's not HER personally, it would be with anyone. I've only just started letting my T in emotionally, after two years of seeing her. I wish I could think of a safe person but I can't. Not even in my present life is there someone 'safe' or 'strong'.

You're right maddog - I feel very floaty today and worn out. Tha I you for sharing that. It helps a LOT to know I really am truly not alone in what I'm going through.

 

[radicalgratitude]

November Star, my heart breaks for you. I wish I could have somehow protected you.