Sensory Flashback

[eav]

I am having a sensory flashback, and I don't think I can stand it. Someone came up and tickled/rubbed my arm this morning and I couldn't get my arm away from her fast enough. I don't even know what event the flashback is related to, I just can't get rid of the sensation in my skin. I don't know what my point is in posting this, I just feel like I'm losing my mind right now and that this will never stop. I drank a couple of glasses of wine earlier and it helped for a while, but the sensations are back now. Anybody have a magic cure for these horrible sensations?

 

[Venusian]

I wish I had an answer for you, I hate when I have those sensations. Sometimes the only thing that works is for me is to say out loud "Yes I know you are there..., now go away." Sometimes that helps and sometimes I just have to let it run its course. For me, I fought against any of it for so long and denied that anything happened that now just acknowledging the sensation and flashback is real releases its hold on me. Sometimes it helps.

 

[arfie]

Like Venusian, this kind of weirdity seems to proceed more constructively if I don't fight it. Just gotta go where it leads me, gently and without obsessing (one of my nastier habits). A technique which I learned in an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workshop is to change the fact word by word. The example here could be:

I notice the touch brought an eerie feeling to my arm.
I notice the touch brought a tingling feeling to my arm.
etc., etc...
I notice my arm is tingling.

The goal is to get the flashback to a manageable level so that you can set it to the back of your mind and get on with your day. It is still there, but not a show-stopper. Kinda like allergies?

I don't know why you posted this, either, but I know I share stuff like this because it seems to help me get a handle on it. I'm glad you did post it. Thank you.

 

[Promicarus]

I'm glad you posted as well. Better to get it out, however seemingly small, than let it fester and build.

I have to agree with the previous posts--we often entrench problems when we fight them/obsess over them.

This is just to focus on it more, after all. Like saying, "o.k. whatever you do DON"T think of an elephant." You're going to think of an elephant automatically, even though your consciously aware of needing NOT to.

It's matter of any resistance=focus, making whatever it is worse. Not only that, but if you tend towards anxiety issues, these could be mixing with the sensation--you're becoming anxious about the fact that the sensation is still there, and your anxiety is making the sensation snowball..as is the tendency with anxiety in most manifestations.

I'd suggest another approach to "welcoming the sensation" in order to get over it, and in accepting it, cut out the vicious cycle, anxiety component.

Sit quietly with eyes closed, and back straight, and breathing deeply with your stomach, through your nose. And face the sensation. Inspect it. Try to describe it to yourself. Become interested in it as an object of impartial study. Make a list of its characteristics. Roll it over on the tongue of your mind. It may well be that it's the struggle, and your failure to win at it, which is more frustrating and disturbing than the sensation, itself. By confronting it without resistance or fear, you may succeed in taking the charge out of it, and the anxiety component which exacerbates it.

 

[macca]

Hey @eav I've had these, luckily fairly rarely, and have found them to be very unpleasant. I sometimes get visual flashbacks, but sometimes it's the same situation but instead of visual it's the sense of someone there that I cannot see, but whose ill-intentioned presence I can distinctly feel. I will sometimes "feel" them touch my head, or sit on my bed. It's scary, like most flashbacks are. The way I learned to deal with them (and I must admit I haven't even mentioned them to my therapist yet, so this isn't proper advice, only my experience) is to do something like Venusian said, and to tell them to "go away". I usually cannot speak right at that moment for fear, so I say it in my head. But that usually seems to work. But what the others have posted makes a lot of sense - to learn to accept it and let it run it's course.

 

[eav]

@macca I agree, I feel that person behind me, too. Like a ghost that I can kind of see out of the corner of my eye. It is terrifying. Yes, I feel them touching me. I think I know who it is, but when I turn my head to get a good look, I can't. Rationally, I know no one is behind me, but I just can't shake the feeling.