Triggers & Flashbacks

[UnKnown-Self]

I realize there is a difference between a trigger and a FB.
The most important thing is recognizing a trigger and learning to pause.
One can be triggered and not FB but I don't think one can have a FB without it being triggered.
so before someone learns the pause, triggers and flashbacks kind of merge like PB&J but not in that good way. Maybe more like gasoline and a match...

 

[Nevermore]

Is that right, that you can be triggered and not have flashbacks? I have so much trouble with this side of it all.
I sometimes get set off and am not sure what's caused it, and the next couple of days are full of emotional flashbacks. Feeling again an overwhelming urge to drink, to gamble, try to disappear - which all makes the suicidal urges take over out of control.
In one now. i was about to say I don't know the trigger, but just realised I do as I spent the night with my mother last Friday and slowly disintegrated since then.
Just have to wait for it to pass.
I wish I was as brave as so many here in writing out the events that accumulated in PTSD or cptsd in my case. I just can't do it. But it's all alive and inside of me where it was put 30 years ago!!!
Dear God, is there no end to it all.
How can your own mother be an enabler of her own child's destruction?
Says she didn't realise or understAnd and is sorry now.
That doesn't really help. Or chsnge all those years of thinking I was crazy.
My dearest friend and ex partner used to say "When I die, just put me in the wheelie bin out the front", I know how he felt!
But of course he had the full thing, high Catholic funeral - full of hypocrisy and grief for me.
Can't help but hate the human race some days
Ah. I'm sure this post does not even make sense. I'm in a lot of pain right now.
Wherr can I get a cheap lobotomy???

 

[EveHarrington]

Very insightful!

IME the "pause" is difficult to learn. Not sure if I'll ever have it mastered completely since I'm still discovering new triggers!

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I have not by any means mastered the pause.
But I have, after much journaling (and a lot we do on here is journaling) became more aware first in hindsight and then in the moment. It is still an occasion for me when it happens :)
The first thing is recognizing the impulse to react. In other words, I'm learning to keep my mouth shut and not curry favor at the work place.
That is the secret for me a newbie at it still.
I might go home fuming, vent on here and think about things before acting on them.
I stay away form anyone who has been an abuser in the past.
I keep an eye on developing relationships and ask myself why am I drawn to them. Do they remind me of someone? Is there that click or pull of something? Like you were meant to meet this person? Do I look up to them?
Do I wonder if they can "help" me in some way? Do I feel a need to gain their approval and win them over?
I don't know what makes a healthy relationship so I go slow.
Having similar interests, hobbies, ect can be a good basis.
That pause might only give me enough time to excuse myself so I can run to the bathroom and cry. But at least that stops the embarrassment of being seen.
We control or we can control our thoughts and control ourselves from reacting at that moment.
It's a work in process and for me the beginning of " management

 

[Friday]

I have flashbacks without being triggered all the time.
Same token, most of the time when triggered? I don't have flashbacks. I kick into fight/flight.

That said... I have to very much agree that learning to pause? To slow things dow? To seize on that split second between stimulus & response? Or thought & action? Regardless of what/when... Huge. Whether it's kicking into a panic attack, or lashing out in rage, or grounding out of flashbacks or so very many other possible things.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I need to think about your post @FridayJones you bring up some interesting points

 

[UnKnown-Self]

How do you know you a flashback wasn't brought on by a trigger.
You might not be feeling it because that might be how you learned to cope?
Could you share more why you are aware of a flashback but noting brought it on. Or. Is it visual flashes like a carousel photo player and no feeling?

 

[UnKnown-Self]

Is that right, that you can be triggered and not have flashbacks? I have so much trouble with this si...

I am sorry you are in so much pain. I could mention rewards but the fact is, you have a choice. Yes, some really bad shit happened. Shit that shouldn't happen to anyone.
There are choices today. Choose to win. It's hard as hell and learning healthy management is a personal journey.
I'm glad our paths crossed and post when it feels right for you. Lots of great articles and threads :-)

 

[Nevermore]

Thank you @Alice.in.Wonderland
It's ok, it passed. I know there are choices. When I'm not in the moment it seems so obvious what I can do to help myself, but in the moment I still feel like I'm in some kind of hurricane.
I'll keep practising and trying like everyone else. It will surely get easier one day!
Thank you. Glad our paths crossed too (-:

 

[UnKnown-Self]

The first thing that helped me was telling myself out loud that I have a choice now and I am not small and helpless now.
As soon as I get my baseball bat painted and decopadague with flowers, I'lI feel powerful and cute at the same time.
Try to comfort yourself and be nice to you. You deserve it.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

Managing does not always equate easier. There are no promises. But you embrace the good moments and choose to make them as much as you can to replace the shit but you gotta do some shoveling to make room. Make some good memories.
Ask yourself if your most precious commodity, your energy is focused on the past that nothing can change. There is no understanding some people, no real answers you would understand. Some people perceive the world very differently. And that can affect everything.

 

[solost]

Is that right, that you can be triggered and not have flashbacks? I have so much trouble with this si...

I am brand new to this, my first forum. Been suffering with ptsd all my life, but wasn't aware of it. Adult traumas that all happened within 3 months, left me divorced, jobless, penniless, fatherless, and It was also the beginning of the diagnoses of illnesses that left me homebound isolated, w/ no to talk to, and totally stripped of any kind of independence. I went from working as a hairstylist w/ work out of my home full time, being married with a stepdaughter (I couldn't have children) also, playing two instruments socialising w/ friends , co-workers, clients, and family, driving wherever I needed to go, to 0. Inthree