I know I have minor flashbacks, like walking into a room, and for a few seconds, I can see things from the time. However, I was told today that I'm having more flashbacks than I thought. I can see, in my mind's eye, kind of like an old black and white home movie playing. It's as if I'm watching it from a distance. It's not the I feel like it's happening now feeling, hard to explain, more like I'm watching something extremely upsetting from the past, and almost like it's not even me who experienced it, but watching someone else's life. Does that make sense? Anyway, Therapist told me today that those ARE flashbacks. It's very upsetting and panic attack and anxiety provoking, but I don't have the deep fear and the freeze in your place feelings I get when I have the more obvious flashbacks. Have you experienced this at all? Are these truly flashbacks as the therapist has stated?

The therapist is strongly suggesting guided imagery as a part of treatment for the panic and anxiety. She says there's too much I can't talk about, too much I'm not remembering. Too many blanks in the memory. She believes guided imagery may help some of these issues, especially the paralyzing panic and the worst depression symptoms. Any experience with this? Has it helped anyone here? Is it worth trying?

I've just started therapy. The one leading the group said therapy and meds can't wait, so she pulled some strings, networked, and got me into it much, much sooner than expected. I was originally told it would be a couple months before any appts would become available. She also set me up, not only with her as my therapist and someone she knows as my psychiatrist, but also someone else as a phone contact who can be contacted by phone if I'm having an especially bad day. She said I'm looking at 2 sessions/week for therapy, one with her, one with the other person I've talked to on the phone but have yet to meet, plus bi-weekly appts with the psychiatrist until meds are found to be working, then can back that off to once/month. The problem, I'm scared to death of all this. I do want to feel better. I hate my life. I hate the way I feel day in and day out. I have no desire to do anything other than sit here. Dragging myself to work is of unspoken difficulty. I haven't felt fear like this, other than in frequent panic attacks or in some flashbacks for a long time now, like 2 years. However, right now, I'm scared out of my mind of doing all this. I've never been in therapy before. Sharing feelings is uncomfortable enough for me as I was always taught negative feelings of any kind need to be tucked away and forgotten. My dad used to tell me, "no fear" when he'd take me rock climbing. He'd tell me, "no fear" when I was set to do something uncomfortable. As he was dying, he told me, "no fear, no tears. Strong girls don't cry." It was drilled into my head my entire life. 40 years later, here I am, trying to deal with this fear. Now I have this extremely strong fear of therapy. Do any of you deal with this feeling? It's not just discomfort. It's true, shaking, freezing, panicking FEAR.