About Flashbacks (possible trigger warning)

A month or two ago, I would have said I never had flashbacks. Never experienced them. Not a thing.

I know now that this was because I didn't know what a flashback actually is, or rather, that they can manifest in a lot of different ways.

Used to be, my understanding of what a flashback was, pretty much came from movies and tv. (Duh.)

Like, the media depiction could be some guy driving his kids to school in his minivan, then there's a backfire somewhere and they cut scene and he's in an army vehicle, getting shot at, so he's driving around trying to escape, then they cut scene and you see the guy looking paniced as he drives his minivan across the neighbor's lawn.

In other words, I believed having a flashback meant you were fully seeing and hearing something out of the past, replaying an event like replaying a scene out of a movie. And I never, ever experienced this.

On the other hand, I did (and still do) experience, and our previous host experienced, having wierd 'disconnected' emotional surges. Like suddenly being afraid, heart pounding stomach-clenching terror, that had no explanation. Sometimes there'd be other physical sensations along with the fear. Like stabbing pain in different parts of the body, for no reason.

Or the same thing but with a crushing, desperate sadness. Or loneliness.

It wasn't till I was trying to find the words to describe these occurences, that I found out they actually are flashbacks!

A flashback can be emotional, and/or somatic, as well as 'audio and visual'. And apparently the audio-visual type ones are not the most common. They're the most commonly portrayed in media because they're the easiest to convey I think, the easiest way to show the audience what is happening.

** trigger warning - violence, bullying **

Yesterday I was doing my morning workout on the bicycle, and I was thinking about some stuff about our previous host, which included her being bullyed when she was young. I don't know exactly how it was triggered, but maybe it was just thinking about that while my legs were pumping and my heart rate was up?

I did not get any audio-visual stuff. But I could feel the sudden rush of fear, and the pain of being hit, as I was running, trying to escape. But we were never strong enough or fast enough, and we could never get away. I ended up off the bike and curled up in a ball on a chair, feeling the hits and kicks, getting the air knocked out of me. I felt the pain along with the fear and helplessness.

** end trigger warning **

Because I (finally) knew that what was happening to me was a flashback, I was able to try and cope with it. I knew these sensations were coming from a grade-school child who was reliving this past event, but I also knew I was an adult, safe in my own home, in 2018. I focused on my clock, which shows the year-month-day. I focused on getting my breathing under control, and told myself over and over it was today, I wasn't in the past, wasn't getting beat up. And it worked.

Despite the unpleasant experience of the flashback itself, I'm feeling kind of glad that I finally am able to recognize it and have some tools to cope with it.

I think back of all the countless nights our previous host lay awake in bed, unable to sleep, gripped in abject terror while at the same time being confused, baffled as to why she was so afraid for no reason. She didn't know what was happening, had no way to identify it, so she'd just lie there all night long, sleepless, fearful, and then shrug it off as part of her wierd life.

If we had known flashbacks can be just emotions, or just physical sensations, maybe we could have started working towards healing a lot earlier.

I know sometimes words are just words and we can get hung up on them. But if we don't have the right words to describe or understand something, then I think we can get into problems with leaving stuff unaddressed or unresolved, simply because we can't identify what it is.

Sorry this got so long-winded.

-Violet (1)

We're on the same wavelength, Violet (1)! This is exactly what I've been trying to understand. I could have told you abstractly that flashbacks can be somatic or emotional, but somehow that doesn't translate into us understanding what that really means. When V 2 mentioned yesterday that you had a flashback, I think I did picture something out of a scene from a movie, so it's so helpful to hear your description of what it was actually like.

I had what I now know was a flashback last year (before I went back into therapy), that I was able to process in a similar way--it was so weird to be an adult observing and comforting myself as a child (this was before I really knew that I had parts).

So, thank you for putting this into words!

Hi Gang, glad my lengthy post was helpful hehe.

It was actually a comment you made in another thread that encouraged me to type all this out. I'd been rolling it around in my head since I figured out that these experiences were actually flashbacks. Like I think I even told my T when we first met that I never had flashbacks, lol. But now I know we've been having them for as far back as we know.

The thing that was so wierd yesterday, was sitting there feeling the fear and the pain, and the helplessness, but also being able to look around and see (and know) that I wasn't in danger, that there wasn't anyone hurting me, that I was safe in my home. It was a really wierd disconnect, but I think that helped in a way, to focus on the here-and-now.

Another thing I had forgot to include in my lengthy post, was the aftermath. Once the flashback had ended, I had another surge of different emotions. Shame, guilt, weakness, sadness. And then some despair, and grief.

I think the first group were reactions to the flashback itself, and the last couple were for the part who's still trapped in that trauma.

-Violet (1)

Thank you for a very accurate and descriptive of what we experience. We find the somatic flashbacks the hardest to endure. Recently we have been having a sort of terror-infused flashbacks with no known source (though it is most likely it is our newest little, Aura who is the source of the fear). Perhaps we should clarify; it is the trigger which remains unknown.

We have had around five of these new flashbacks now and boy, do they suck!

This sort of thing happens a lot for us too. I think if you can connect the memory with the flashback then you are making progress. So much of it is disconnected emotions, separated from the conscious memory, which is separate from the bodily experience. And if you have more than one part that dealt with different aspects of what was experienced then boy does it get hard to piece everything together.

It happened again this morning. V1 was working out and pow, another flashback. This one was just the emotions, just fear. No pain, but she got super weak. Not sure if it was part of the flashback or just a reaction to being so scared?

She kind of rode it out and tried to ground and all that jazz but somewhere along the line, when it was over I ended up out front. I think maybe she was just drained from dealing with it.

No idea what triggered it, I don't think she was even doing any of her heavy thinking or whatever.

-V2

Your description is easier to understand than the few others things I've found about flashbacks, really thank you !

http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

This might be interesting to read (with a possible trigger warning, too). I stumbled upon it some years ago (the whole website) and subsequently realized I was dealing with emotional flashbacks. The list at the bottom of this page about what to do if you have a flashback is very useful. Posting in hopes it might be useful to someone!

Thanks fireheart, that was a good article. And a good list!

-V2

That is a REALLY helpful article, fireheart. Thank you.

It doesn't apply 100% to people with parts, though, because just feeling small and little is not automatically a sign of a flashback for me. A younger part could be feeling happy in the present.

Other than that, I'm going to be re-reading this a bunch of times until it really sinks in, and probably printing out that list of things I can do to manage flashbacks.