Source Of Flashbacks

[Futureseeker]

I understand that sufferers experience flashbacks, reliving the trauma they experienced. But if the trauma was repeated 2 or 3 times, which event is relived. I recently found out that my wife had been sexually assaulted several times as a teenager. She is vague on if she experiences flashbacks and what it is. I am trying to help her through these moments but I am not sure which event it is or if it's a blend on the events.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

I was raped every weekend by my babysitter for a four year period as a small by.

When I enter a flashback I am taked back to the first and in my experience worst rape.

I don't remember much conciously about any of the rapes but I am feeling thebfear and emotional.pain I experienced.

Anthony and Nicolette had published a huge amount of really helpful articles in thia forum. I would suggest reading those and I fully expect that they will be really informative for both you and her.

Kindest :hug:s for both of you if you accept them.

Laurie

 

[Laura 2]

My traumas were manifold, all stemming from two major, linked horrors .

So what I assume to be flashbacks can be an amalgam of the terror from 3,4,5 or more events depending on the trigger. Like santa_laurie, I believe it's more accurate to say that I am in the disjointed terror and agony of back-then rather than reliving the whole event as a logical, sequential scene. There are some single event flashbacks, again depending on what sets it off.

Either way, the flashbacks have the same effect - sheer petrifying terror, immobilisation or, more rarely, meaningless, fruitless frantic activity, really cannot think at all, the world swirls around me in very disturbing, disjointed technicolor, seem to be light years away from life as it's happening in the here-and-now and am utterly buried in some other place and overwhelmed by it, can't speak except for gibbered, unlatched words and phrases which may or may not be relevant to the here-and-now.... and as I write I've no idea of what my conscious mind is doing during these flashbacks. It may take hours or days to get 'right-side-up' again (never just minutes) and back into the here-and-now world, but when I do it's almost like these flashbacks never happened, like they disappear back into the quicksand leaving little trace on my consciousness but heavy depression and dreadful hopelessness and the anxiousness of those who were present during.

Even to try and describe the experience is so difficult because it's like I, the me this minute and the me who used to be Before Trauma, am almost completely absent from the flashbacks, so I don't really remember them so well. This is the first time I've attempted to describe or explain. What I do know is that this terrified disconnection or my 'being zapped to another place' seems to scare people.

IMHO,The stereotypical Hollywood depiction of a flashback is quite good as far as it goes : hear the car backfire on the street back home and the vet is rolling on the ground getting out his non-existent gun, desperately trying to call for backup whilst pulling his scared kid to safety under another vehicle. (Interestingly they often use blurry slowed action shots alongside hyper focus on a key part of the car or the vet's shocked yet trancelike eyes and the confused fear in the kid's face. etc.)

I cannot speak for anyone else, but what I most need at the time is calm and kindness, for others to just shut up (because I cannot process their speech) and to be a solidly reassuring presence - and just wait for me to tell them what happened. Sadly, I've never had anyone be that interested in wanting to know what I've just been through though.

 

[Powder]

There is no way to express what a flashback is like to someone who has not had one. But I think both the replies above do a darn good job to cover what can be shared about flashbacks.

For me it helps if my trusted husband brings me a glass of ice water and sets it by me. When I can get through the worst of it, drinking cold helps relieve the dissociation that usually comes with the flashback. During dissociation I either cannot make out sentences that are spoken (I hear a Charlie Brown garbled mix of words) and think the person is mumbling or I can hear the words clearly but cannot formulate a response as if the speech center of my brain is not accessible for a while.

We have a procedure now. Usually, he will figure out by my crying and inability to breathe normally, make eye contact, or speech. So he will get the glass of water, and my Vicks Vaporub to put under my nose when I can, and he will hold out his hand. When I can, I take hold of his hand and grasp it until the flashback receeds enough to stop sobbing, breath normally enough to drink, and put on the Vicks to stop the dissociation. Then, I talk and he listens.

He is worth 1,000 any therapist, but it was the therapist who gave me the ideas of the cold (water) or cold air and strong smells, such as eucalyptus, to snap me out of the dissociation.

She and her therapist can come up with some ideas that work for her, and she can/should coach you on what is/isn't helpful. I know that it can be really helpful to not feel powerless and to know what you can do to provide appropriate and timely care on your end to help get her better faster.

Also, even though this helps put a time limit on a flashback, realize that I suffer from greater fatigue and PTSD symptoms for about 2 weeks after a flashback episode. So even if we do "everything right" the aftereffects are still there, but less if we can get the flashback to a minimum. :) Hope this helps.

 

[Futureseeker]

Thank you for information, it helps me to be to into perspective my role in the healing process. In all the years we have been married, she has never allowed us to be fully intimate. Whenever we start to get intimate she would "zone out" but would not allow intercourse. Until a year ago I thought her "zoning out" was her way of relaxing to point. I knew she had a troubled family history. A year ago I found out about her first assault, so now I am wondering if those times she was either resisting or having flashbacks. She wouldn't really act out just lay there until I tried to have sex with her, then she would strongly push me away.

After reading through this forum and into other literature, I saw a lot of the symptoms of ptsd in her. But I always felt there was something more than that single assault. Recently I found out about two more assaults.

Unfortunately she steadfastly refuses to get help from a therapist. These traumas continue to plague her, more twenty years later.

I myself have sought therapy to help cope.

Seeing her suffering has become difficult for me. But it seems that any real healing I need can not begin until gets help for herself.

I don't know how to get her understand for her sake as well as mine and as a couple that she needs help to reduce or end her suffering.

 

[Laura 2]

But it seems that any real healing I need can not begin until gets help for herself.

It feels hard to say this and I would imagine hard to hear but, from what you've shared so far, it's 100% sure that the only person who can initiate and sustain healing is your wife.

It sounds like any healing you need will come as a by-product of your wife's.

 

[Powder]

So many people with childhood severe abuse and trauma do not believe that any kind of therapy will help because they have been this way so long.

Therapy is not a guarantee. Most people can take steps to make life better in several ways in the daily choices people make.

Someone who has been suffering this badly for so long may not have found hope. I agree with Laura 2 that hope is not something you can make someone else feel.

I'm also sad to hear all this. I would get help from therapy for yourself for now. I think it says a lot about your character to stay with someone for so long with such issues, but also only if you have done everything to be faithful and kind to the other person.