Waking Up In Flashback

[EvenStrongerNow]

Does anyone ever wake up in a flashback?

 

[katarata]

Yes, that happened quite a lot of times. It's like waking up from a bad dream, not knowing what is real and what isn't, where I am and what is about to happen, and then it turns into a flashback. Something like that. What is it like for you?

 

[Ghostybear73]

Yes, it happens to me also. Not as bad as it used to be. You start to get desensitized after years of going through it and it starts to get easier knowing the difference between what is real and not.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

I wake up scanning and fact checking, feeling like I am with him again. I have the unreal thoughts too and it takes me awhile to realize I'm in a safe place.

I did not realize it was going on until my mother (on the phone) and my husband told me how I was acting some mornings.

Sometimes, at night, when I am cuddling up to my husband and put my arm around him, pictures flash and I have to remind myself that I am with my husband, not him. I feel intense fear.

It's hard because my hubbs doesn't stay in bed with me in the morning. My ex didn't either.

So, when I wake up alone, it's much harder to deal with the emotions and images.

 

[arfie]

Never thought of them as flashbacks, but I often wake from dreams about the past and can't shake them easily. It is a small enough diff to make me think, yes.

A suggestion I might make to help with your current scenario is to ask hubbs to put a reminder on his pillow when he leaves in the morning. Something glaringly inappropriate, like a shoe or whatever, that could only be his. Something to give your sleepy senses a clear reminder that you are safe now.

Just a thought... Above all, be patient with yourself. Healing is a process.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

Arfie, that's a great idea! Thanks :)

 

[Echo]

Yes, only this morning. They are usually triggered by a sound in my environment which I must hear whilst asleep. This time it was the doorbell with an early morning delivery. I immediately went into full blown heart cramp, shaking, etc. When I tried to get up to go the door, I had lost all power in my legs and felt utterly enfeebled for the rest of the morning. And I don't even know what a doorbell represents to me, i.e. how it figures in my past. I am considering writing a letter to my abusive parents and several people have said, "what if they turn up on your doorstep?" To be honest, my rational mind thinks this is the last thing they will do, but perhaps underneath it all my fear of that, the usual invasion of boundaries, is what it was all about.

I've woken with flashbacks of being raped and abused, both visual ones and bodily flashbacks. At one point it was every day. Exhausting and very confusing.

 

[macca]

Yes, and it's when most of my flashbacks occur - I wake up and see and sense a dark figure creeping into the room. It isn't a dream because I wake suddenly in terror just prior as if there actually is an intruder, heart racing, wide-eyed. I think it reflects an actual incursion into my room as a young child. There are sometimes body memories too. I sometimes wake with nightmares of being raped as well, and I'm usually very dissociated after those.

 

[AS1975]

One of life's less pleasant experiences - for me it is far more frightening than the actual events. Full-blown terror reaction, absolutely unlike that experienced during the incidents in question. Frankly, the first time I've ever been absolutely incapable of response/paralyzed by fear was during a full-on dream-flashback experience.

I thought I knew what fear was, I now know what makes people freeze through complete irrational fear, I'd much prefer not to have that knowledge (or the experience of it). Seroquel/Fluovoxamine in tandem seem to stop the worst of the symptoms for me, I get the dreams, I get the exhaustion, but I don't recall (or wake in that state). Far from perfect, but bearable.

AS

 

[Ed Norton]

I have actually experienced the opposite, in that, I would experience the flashback while just on the verge of falling asleep. This experience was like a dream state except I was definitely awake. Thankfully, it now appears that my flashbacks have gone into remission. Unfortunately I still get nightmares and night terrors though. This makes falling asleep very hard for me. The other flashbacks I have had were preceded by a severe panic attack.

 

[Disposable]

It's almost like getting really sucked into a movie. The film is playing and you are there watching it happen to you over and over. The smells, the feelings....they are so very real. When you come back, you are scanning, and have no idea what is real, or where you are.