Scared....Please help me understand abreactions...

I am newly diagnosed with DID and I don't understand what abreactions are...I've read they are emotional memories and like re-living the trauma. What does that mean? Do you actually act out the event? Does it manifest itself outwardly so others can see? I have had very strange things happen and I'm not sure if they are abreactions or flashbacks on steroids..
Can someone PLEASE help me understand?

To the best of my knowledge, abreactions are like flashbacks. You are back at the time of abuse. I am a support person, I do not have DID, but my BF does; the one and only abreaction/flashback I saw happen he completely froze and was lost inside his head. No outward signs except he sat frozen. I would google, or study up on what they call "grounding techniques", ways to ground yourself if you have a flashback. Grounding yourself brings you back to present time where you know you are safe, and the abuse is in the past.

Could be like rubbing your feet on the carpet, counting to ten, putting your hands in cold water...whatever works for you, or if you have a partner to help you out.

Thank you for your reply Patience...

I have learned some grounding techniques from a friend and they do help.

I really would like some feedback from someone who has experienced an abreaction to ge an idea of what happens....research only gives the facts.

Abreactions are simply big flashbacks. They are not a remembering but a re-experiencing of the original experience, as if it where happening all over again. Some people get so lost in the re-experiencing that they do act out. This is what makes some combat veterans with untreated PTSD so dangerous. Others just sit there while inside their head really awful stuff is going on. But most of us usually are somewhere in between.

In my case, in one very unpleasant abreaction I screamed and my body took a "bridge" posture (opisthotonus). But what was far more memorable about it was the physical sensations inside my body. I will spare you all the details.

Current state-of-the art practice in trauma therapy is to avoid abreactions, not provoke them. Abreactions often result in additional trauma, and this is not helpful. Current 3-phase trauma therapy teaches both therapist and client skills to enable processing of traumatic events in small pieces and with grounding and containment in place so that there is no abreaction.

Wikipedia: Opisthotonus

So what's the difference between that and a flashback, duration of the experience?

katana wrote:So what's the difference between that and a flashback, duration of the experience?

No, the difference is the intensity of the re-experience. If you like, an abreaction is an especially intense flashback. There is no bright line between the two.

I have experienced flashbacks too. I call them flashbacks and not abreactions because they were not overwhelming, they did not blot out reality. I could still see the world around me, I knew I was safe in the here and now, and yet in my head something from my past was happening at the same time.

Hmm. I thought flashbacks are when you are suddenly "literally there", but can't imagine stuff going on for a long time or acting things out. Then again no, I've had experiences where I was aware of where I was. All just seems to come under "similar" though, "trauma processing".

-- Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:58 pm --

Thanks for the explanation.

Thanks for the info Una...I feel better