Dwight are you in therapy?

I am sorry that your experiencing flashbacks, they are very troubling to understand.

What helped me is paying attention to the visions when they happen. There are a lot of details in flashbacks, pictures and sounds and colors and even smells. They are amazingly real. But when you have them try to just concentrate on what your seeing in them, everything. After the flashback happens stop and think about what you saw in the flashback. It is important that decide to think about is as if you were watching a movie and was seeing something that is not happening to you now. Make a decision that your NOT going to be afraid of what you see, instead your going to pay attention to it. In these flashbacks are visions that you had when you experienced them only you were experiencing a lot of emotion and fear at the time, even might have felt you were in danger. Once you have thought about what your seeing in the flashback try to calm down and concentrate on just the images, these images can be triggers. For example one of my flashbacks was a lot of doors opening closing and I was very upset in the flashback. I could also hear the sounds of the doors and could even remember that these doors were in a home I grew up in. And the story that went with the flashbacks is that I was running through the doors very,very frightened, running away from my brother whom I felt was going to harm me badly. That was when I realized that the sounds of doors triggered me, and I would fill with anxiety.

By observing the flashbacks and even writing down what was in them you can then remember the event that might have frightened you and remind yourself that you did survive it and it is not happening now and you can work on consciously telling yourself that your ok now. Therefore you can help prevent that flashback from happening again. And you will also find out triggers that you may have that you never realized before.

It is all about information, a reminder of an upsetting event that you can now consciously accept reminding yourself that it may have been scary then but you are ok now. It takes time but you do need to make a journal. Try not to let new fear be added to the flashbacks. Calm yourself down let yourself see them and know that your ok now.

It has helped me lower the occurance of flashbacks. I will always remember the flashbacks as we can never forget things we experience and see, but we can come to a peace with these memories knowing that we did survive them.

Open Eyes